In 2023, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had carried out searches at Padgha as part of a nationwide crackdown on the terror outfit ISIS and arrested several persons, including Nachan.
The Thane unit of the ATS, with the assistance of the Thane rural police, started searches around 4 am at Padgha and Borivali villages in the district adjoining Mumbai, an official said without giving case details.
Police recovered the rifle during a raid on a house in Padgha village and allege it was given to Nachan by a suspected Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist.
The suspect, Saquib Nachan, feared that the cops might kill him in a fake encounter.
The blasts occurred at Mulund, Vile Parle and Mumbai Central between December 2002 and March 2003.
The NIA had originally chargesheeted three persons in March 2023 and filed its supplementary chargesheet before the special court at Patiala House in New Delhi on Monday against 17 others, of whom 15 are from Maharashtra and one each from Uttarakhand and Haryana, it said.
The Bombay high court Monday rejected a petition filed by a prime accused in the 2003 Mulund bomb blast case pleading that he and 12 others be set at liberty as their detention under Prevention of Terrorism Act was illegal.
Accused Wahid Ansari and Farhan Khot were also awarded life imprisonment in the 2002-2003 bomb blasts case.
A division bench of justices A S Oka and A A Sayed granted bail to Atif Mulla on a surety of Rs 1.50 lakh.
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