Sources in the investigation agencies said that two people have been picked from the walled city and two more from Okhla. The suspects, believed to have links with banned SIMI outfit, were being questioned by joint teams of central security agencies and police.
The common link between serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad have started to get closer with the Gujarat police picking up a key person identified as Sajid Ghulam Khwaja Mansuri, an activist of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India.
Intelligence Bureau officials said that several important SIMI activists are still on the run. On top of the list of wanted men is Mohammad Altaf Subhan. Subhan specialises in designing bombs for the outfit. IB officials say that Subhan, a resident of Thane near Mumbai, had started imparting bomb-making training to several SIMI activists across the country.
The Crime branch, investigating the serial blasts, which rocked the city on July 26, has carried out massive combing operations in various areas even as several people have been detained for questioning, the police said on Thursday.
"We had received leads into the case on the basis of five mobile phones used by the conspirators of the blasts," Joint Commissioner (Crime Branch) Ashish Bhatia told media persons as police claimed to have solved the July 26 serial blasts by arresting 10 alleged SIMI activists, including mastermind Mufti Abu Bashir.
He was arrested after a 'brief exchange of fire'.
The Delhi police may have been right after all to go ahead with the encounter at Batla House. If the confession of Mohammad Noushad, one of the accused in the Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru serial blasts is to be believed, then the boys who were killed at Batla House were infact a part of the Indian Mujahideen which created panic across the country in form of serial blasts.
The Union home ministry was in constant touch with the Gujarat police, the state chief secretary and state administration, seeking details of the blasts, Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta told reporters in New Delhi
Indian Mujahideen co-founder Yasin Bhatkal, arrested from the Indo-Nepal border in north Bihar, is wanted in several blast cases being probed by the National Investigation Agency and state police forces. His name had come up in connection with the explosion outside Delhi high court on September 7, 2011 in which 12 people were killed.
Indian Mujahideen co-founder Yasin Bhatkal and his close associate Asadullah Akhtar were on Friday remanded to 12-day police custody by a Delhi court after the National Investigation Agency said their custodial interrogation was required to unearth larger conspiracy of terror attacks.
A Delhi court on Tuesday extended till September 17 the National Investigation Agency custody of Indian Mujahideen co-founder Yasin Bhatkal and his close associate Asadullah Akhtar after the agency claimed they were involved in a deep rooted conspiracy and had executed various blasts in India.
The story of the Bombay Stock Exchange and the people who shaped its growth: From wars and bomb blasts to speculators, reformers and wealth creators.
While Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is likely to announce the progress of the investigations in the state capital on Saturday, the sources told rediff.com that the mastermind behind the blasts is a mufti (Islamic teacher) who has been arrested from a madrasa in Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Narendra Modi is likely to announce the progress of the investigations on Saturday.
BJP leader L K Advani on Saturday blamed the lack of tough anti-terror laws and weak intelligence machinery for the spate of serial blasts but would not come to a conclusion that BJP-ruled states are being targeted. "It looks like our anti-terror legal framework is not upto the mark and it got exposed," he said reacting to the serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad close on the heels of similar blasts in Bangalore on Friday.
It was curtains down on the high-decibel campaigning for the fourth phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls as sparring among political rivals intensified during the last-minute canvassing on Monday.
"Convict him or acquit him," an anguished Supreme Court observed on non-framing of charges on an accused jailed for 11 years over serial blasts in multiple Rajdhani Express and other trains in 1993.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said that youths of Azamgarh had to hide their identities due to narrow-minded divisive forces.
The hijackers of an Indian Airlines plane in 1999 -- Abdul Rauf Asghar, Ibrahim Athar and Yusuf Azhar -- have also been named in the list, prepared under provisions of the amended Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
It does not make sense to believe that an event in 2008 took place because of an event in 2002. Across the country, more than 30 similar acts of terror have taken place. There is no logic behind this argument. This is a political argument launched by some people and taken up by the media, says Gujarat's Minister of State for Home Amit Shah
Five Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts accused, who were on Monday sent to another three days of police remand in the failed Sabarmati jailbreak attempt case, complained of "torture" by police.
According to the Gujarat police, Muufi Abu Bashir was present in Ahmedabad on the day of the blasts. It is not yet known where he was from January 2007 to March 2008, when he allegedly took over as the head of the SIMI network after the arrest of Safdar Nagori, the general secretary of SIMI, and his brother Karimuddin by the Indore police in March this year
What the terrorists have failed to achieve so far in other parts of India through their repeated acts of terrorism, the Government of India and the Bharatiya Janata Party have achieved for them in Jammu and Kashmir -- the government through its shockingly ham-handed handling of a sensitive issue and the BJP by its cynical exploitation of the communal tensions arising from the government's mishandling
The Indianised jihad is presently targeted against the BJP, but it could turn against the American and Israeli presence in India in due course.
The city police have been receiving its fair share of hoax calls since the serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad but the strangest yet has been a caller from Ireland who has made two hoax calls so far.
Following the serial blasts in Mumbai on Wednesday, the six other cities which have been identified as potential targets of the Indian Mujahideen are Jaipur, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mangalore, Bangalore and Goa.
"We are constantly harassed, taunted and beaten up. Even if we complain to the higher authorities, they do not take any action in the matter," Mobin Kader Seikh said. Seikh, along with Asif Bashir Seikh and Mohammed Sakeel made the charges before Additional Sessions Judge Santosh Snehi Mann during the proceedings in the serial blast cases conducted through video-conferencing from the Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad.
Terrorist acts are aimed at destroying our social fabric, undermining communal harmony and demoralise our people, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday in Ahmedabad. We will rise to the challenge and I am confident we will be able to defeat these forces, Dr Singh said after visiting the serial blasts injured in an Ahmedabad hospital.
Serial blasts in Ahmedabad, recoveries of crude bombs from Surat and terror threats have failed to prevent people from celebrating the ongoing nine-day Navratri festival.
The Mumbai police named a person by the Amir Raza Khan, who is allegedly controlling the IM from Pakistan. Amir Raza Khan, according to the Intelligence Bureau, is a mafia don who used to operate from Bangladesh. An IB official told rediff.com that Khan shuttled between Bangladesh and Pakistan, and was linked with the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, which was responsible for the attacks at Hyderabad and Ajmer last year.
The Students Islamic Movement of India activists arrested for their alleged involvement in the serial blasts in Ahmedabad on July 26 are also suspected to have planted bombs in Surat, Crime Branch officials said on Thursday.
Qureshi, 46, had been on the run since 20 blasts ripped through Gujarat's main city Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, killing more than 50 people
Three Kashmiri youths were detained for questioning by the police during search operations carried out in Mumbai, a senior police official said on Tuesday. Raids were carried out in multiple hotels and lodges across Mumbai as part of security measures following serial blasts in Ahmedabad and Bengaluru, the official said.
Arrests across the country show that most of the youth who are part of sleeper cells work as mechanics, STD booth operators and, in some cases, insurance agents. The IB points out that these jobs involve meeting a lot of people which in turn helps them gather data. Of late there is also an increasing trend to recruit educated youth. However, their role is largely restricted to data collection and improvising techniques during terror strikes.
"We have prepared three sketches of suspects based on the description given by an eye-witness who saw them planting the bombs in different parts of the city," Joint Commissioner of Police Ashish Bhatia said."We have decided to not make those sketches public at this stage as it will hamper the probe," he added.The police are conducting regular combing operations and security has been tightened in vital locations of the state.
Nagori, Abdul Sibley, Hafeez Hussain, Kamruddin Nagori and Amil Pervez were produced before Metropolitan Magistrate G M Patel who sent them to police custody till September 23.
North Karnataka has emerged as the hotbed for terror activity, according to intelligence sources. The recent operation by the Gujarat and Karnataka police in which two doctors were picked up in Bijapur is only an indication that northern Karnataka is looked upon as a safe haven by terror groups.
In the wake of back-to-back terror attacks in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, the Centre is holding a meeting of top civil and police officials in Delhi on Friday to take a close look at security situation in the country and explore the possibilities of forming a federal agency.
The lone alleged Indian Mujahideen militant facing trial in the 2008 Batla House encounter case in New Delhi has pleaded innocent before a Delhi court while refuting police's claim that he had confessed to his role.
Meeting the families of six persons killed in serial bomb blasts during his Sunday rally, BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Saturday assured them all help from the party.
He was a member of Azamgarh (Sanjarmur) module of the IM and was based in Nepal where he was teaching at a school.
