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Patna blast: 2 suspects detained; BJP disrupts assembly

Last updated on: April 01, 2015 17:45 IST

Two suspects were detained for interrogation in Patna on Wednesday in connection with a bomb blast that took place in a residential building in the Bihar capital on Monday night, police said. 

“A team of police have detained two suspect people near Harminder Saheb, a Sikh shrine in old Patna city for in connection with the bomb blast,” a police official said.’

Police had, on Tuesday, detained a man in Nalanda district in this connection and interrogated him.
A team of National Investigation Agency along with the Bihar’s Anti Terrorist Squad interrogated the two suspect detained, police informed.

The state police have already released pictures of three main suspects in the blast case.

The three suspects were identified as Kundan Kumar, Ashok Kumar and Hemant Kumar.

Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Jitendra Rana said that as yet the three main accused had not been arrested but only detained.

Anand Kumar Pandey, DSP, Bihar’s ATS, told media that the probe was on the right track.

He refused to divulge any more details about the detention.

No casualties were reported in Monday’s blast, and police later recovered two more live high-intensity bombs from the site.

Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party members on Wednesday disrupted the proceedings in the Bihar assembly, demanding a debate on a bomb blast in the Patna.

After raising the issue, BJP members created a ruckus in the assembly.

BJP members protested by wearing black badges and also staged protest over the issue outside the assembly.

The assembly was adjourned till 2 pm after BJP members caused uproar and trooped to the well of the house, shouting slogans against the state government, demanding that the house should take up the adjournment motion notice of leader of opposition Nand Kishore Yadav.

It was Yadav who along with some party legislators staged a dharna and accused the state government of failures of law and order.

"The state assembly proceedings were disrupted as noisy scenes were again witnessed soon after the house started and the speaker adjourned the house," a ruling Janata Dal-United legislator said.

Nand Kishore Yadav blamed the state government for the blast.

Bihar water resources development minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said that government was ready for debate on the issue but opposition BJP members were not interested for it.

“BJP members were only keen to disrupt the assembly,” he said.

An NIA team on Tuesday began a probe into the blast to ascertain the involvement of any terror organisation.

Although a Maoist group, the People's Liberation Front of India, did claim responsibility for the blast, the Additional Director General of Police Gupteshwar Pandey said that it may be a strategy to divert the ongoing probe.

Police said a timer device of the ‘lotus brand’ was attached to the bombs.

Such bombs were also recovered during the 2013 serial blasts in Patna during Bharatiya Janata Party's then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's rally.

Picture for representation only.

M I Khan in Patna