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3 suspects handed over to Ahmedabad crime branch

— Photo: PTI

The sketch of a suspect who, police said, brought the car loaded with explosives materials in Surat.

AHMEDABAD: Even as the investigation into Saturday’s serial bomb blasts here is making little progress, the police believe that the arrest of three suspects from Surendranagar could provide some vital clues.

The three were picked up soon after the blasts, and handed over to the Ahmedabad crime branch police on Monday. The police said Abdul Quadir, Hasil Mohammad and Hussain Ibrahim were arrested during a check of vehicles going out of Ahmedabad. The police found £200 and Rs. 85,000 stashed away under the vehicle seat.

The police said the trio was allegedly involved in an RDX recovery case in Mangrol in Junagadh district a couple of years ago. During interrogation, the three, it was claimed, made contradictory statements about their whereabouts, but it was established that they were in the Shah Alam locality in Ahmedabad when bombs struck the city on Saturday evening.

The police were also questioning Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activist Abdul Halim, who was arrested during a combing operation in the Dani Limda locality on Sunday. On Monday, a metropolitan court remanded him to police custody till August 10. Wanted in connection with the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat, Halim, the police believe, also played an active role in Saturday’s bombings.

The police believed that they stumbled upon yet another vital clue when a Bhavnagar resident told them that he had received an anonymous call on his mobile phone from another mobile saying the caller had “reached” Surat. A businessman and small-time Congress worker, Virendra Vala told the police that someone called him up on Monday afternoon and in rapid voice informed him that “I have reached Surat” and then immediately asked for one Aslambhai. On being told that it was not Aslambhai’s number, the caller quickly hung up. The police are trying to trace the call.

The police suspicion that Surat was possibly the next on the terrorist radar was further strengthened by the recovery on Monday evening of a live bomb. Packed in a small bag, it was kept under a transformer on Varacha Road. A bomb squad defused it. It was almost at the same place that a car laden with explosives was recovered, besides the spotting of another explosives-laden car in the Punamgaon locality and a live bomb near a private hospital on City Light road, on Sunday.

Surat Police Commissioner R.M.S. Brar said both cars were found to have been “stolen” from Navi Mumbai. The police were investigating whether the vehicles still belonged to the original owners or had been sold. The police opine that a third car of the same make, as were the two found in Surat, was also stolen from Navi Mumbai and was used to trigger the huge blast outside the trauma centre in the government civil hospital in Ahmedabad. All the three vehicles carried fake numbers with Vadodara registration.

In the wake of the recovery of explosive-laden cars, all schools in Surat remained closed, though colleges functioned normally. By and large life was normal in Surat.

Two calls to the Ahmedabad police of the callers having found bombs turned out to be a hoax. An abandoned “tiffin” box at the Jashodanagar Chokdi had in it cooked food, while nothing was found at the Usmanpura office of the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority despite intensive search.

The crime branch police have sent teams to Surat, Vyara and Navsari on suspicion of SIMI’s links with these cities and towns.

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