Patna Blasts: police recover three more bombs

mangaloretoday.com

Patna, Oct 29, 2013, DHNS: Bomb Disposal Squad members of NSG defusing a live bomb found at Gandhi Maidan in Patna. The Patna police on Tuesday located three more bombs planted by Indian Mujahideen (IM) operatives.

“A batch of six people, divided into three groups of two, was specifically assigned the task of carrying out blasts. Each group was given six bombs. Till now, 15 bombs have either exploded or they were defused. The remaining three were found near Gandhi Maidan on Tuesday and defused,” said senior SP (SSP) of Patna, Manu Maharaj.

 

Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami arrived here to assess the situation in the wake of Sunday’s serial blasts. Goswami visited the blast site along with Bihar Home Secretary Amir Subhani and Maharaj.

In view of continued threat perception, the Patna district administration has asked the CPI-ML to hold its “Khabardar rally” on Miller School grounds instead of Gandhi Maidan. “The rally, instead of Gandhi Maidan, will now be held on Wednesday at Miller School ground,” said a district official. Meanwhile, a special police team continued to raid IM hideouts in Bihar and Jharkhand.


Patna blasts: One more detained from Motihari, more raids on


The police have arrested one person in connection with the serial blasts in Patna. The police said that the accused was picked up from Motihari based on leads provided by Imtiyaz, who is in police custody.

The police are also conducting raids in Mau and Jahanabad. Meanwhile, the Jharkhand and Bihar police conducted joint raids on Imityaz’s residence in Jharkhand on Tuesday night. Imtiyaz, during interrogation, has revealed that a man named Haider Ali alias Abdullah introduced him to mastermind-IM leader-Tehsin Akhtar.


The NIA belives that Haider could be the man whose sketch was released as a suspect in Bodh Gaya blasts which took place in July this year.

Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who will meet Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Wednesday continues to deny any security lapse on the part of his government even though the Centre says intelligence had been passed on to the state government ahead of BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s Hunkaar rally.

Earlier on Tuesday, over 48 hours since the serial blasts in Patna, the police continued to find unexploded bombs. On the investigation front police got a shot in the arm when Imtiyaz revealed that Haider Ali introduced him to Tehseen Akhtar. The FIR accessed by CNN-IBN says Tehseen Akhtar, Imtiyaz, Haider and two others hatched the Patna blast conspiracy in Ranchi.

Imtiyaz took a bus to Patna and reached on Sunday morning. He and his accomplice Tariq were tasked to plant the bomb at the railway station but Tariq got grieviously injured when one of the bombs accidentally went off. The police are probing if Tehseen too was present in Patna on Sunday to monitor and help his module. Sources say Tehseen could have handed over more than 15 bombs to his team to strike terror in Patna.

NIA so far hasn’t managed to arrest him even with a reward of Rs 10 lakh, but as it prepares to take over this case formally, the question is whether it will manage to nab Akhtar before he spreads terror further.