Date:14/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/10/14/stories/2007101460320900.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Police team in Hyderabad

Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD: A police team from Rajasthan arrived here on Saturday to probe whether there is any Hyderabad link to the blast at the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisthi at Ajmer, even as the city police began probing whether the city resident Saleem, who died in the dargah blast, held any key to the Ajmer bombing.

The focus of the investigation by Rajasthan police and their counterparts in Hyderabad now is centring on a possible Hyderabadi connection to the Ajmer blast. Apart from one of the victims being from Hyderabad, several similarities like the use of the same explosive device and detonation mechanism -- that of an alarm clock in a mobile phone -- pointed to the involvement of same persons in the blasts at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad and Ajmer dargah.

The Hyderabad link was further strengthened after the unexploded bomb at Ajmer was found wrapped in a Telugu daily. “Same newspaper was used to wrap the live bomb found in Mecca Masjid. But these two papers are of different dates,” a police officer told The Hindu.

The city police are ascertaining whether Saleem held any clue to the bombers. Saleem, a resident of Janakinagar in Tolichowki, worked as travel agent earlier and sent people abroad for different jobs. He ran into trouble after his Mumbai agent deceived him. As his clients from Nizamabad mounted pressure, Saleem went into hiding. He later surfaced in Ajmer where he set up a cosmetics shop.