The Anti Terrorism Squad on Wednesday told the MCOCA court hearing the case into the September 2008 Malegaon blast that it has video recordings of a meeting in which the blast accused were present
Shyam Apte, an engineer who returned to India after spending 25 years in the United States and has been staying in Pune since the last one decade since his retirement, was grilled for three hours by ATS officials at his residence in Nav Sahyadri area of the city on Friday last. His name figured in the narco test of Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit
The special MCOCA court on Tuesday directed the state to file its reply to the allegations of physical torture levelled by sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt Col Purohit and others accused in the Malegaon blast case
Pravin Togadia, general secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, rejected the Anti Terrorism Squad's contention that those who had been arrested in the Malegoan bomb blast case and particularly Dayanand Pande had given a supari for killing senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Mohan Bhagwat and a colleague for straying away from the Hindu line.
It is incredible that the Sadhvi was kept in illegal detention for two weeks while she was tortured in a vicious manner which led to her hospitalisation. Polygraph and narco tests were conducted without her consent. Not even a female constable was present during her illegal confinement.
All I have to say is that the narco-analysis reports came in very late and by the time we started to look into it, the case was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation. We however got to know that those involved in the Nanded blast were also part of the Parbhani blasts case, says K P S Raghuvanshi, former chief of the Mumbai Anti Terrorism Squad
The Mumbai ATS should investigate the blasts thoroughly and need not hesitate to have a second look at the Samjhauta Express explosions, but they should do it in a professional manner, not in a manner that adds to suspicions that the investigation has taken a pre-election political turn -- with the objective being to fix the Hindu nationalists and not to fix the terrorists, says B Raman
Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in the Malegaon blast, has alleged that she has been tortured and ill-treated by the Anti-Terrorism Squad, her counsel told a court here today.
The claim by Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad about presence of RDX in the 2007 Samjhauta train blast has flummoxed investigators, who probed the attack, as forensic analysis had shown no signs of the deadly explosive being used in the terror strike that left 68 people dead.
Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil has directed the police to probe the case of the 'missing' bulletproof vest of Anti-Terror Squad chief Hemant Karkare, who died fighting terrorists during the 26/11 attacks.
Initial reports said the blast occurred within the barracks of the Anti-Terrorism Squad at the Police Lines. Witnesses said several injured persons were rushed to nearby hospitals by ambulances.
"The mail sent by a group named the Indian Mujhahideen soon after the blasts has been tracked to an IP address in the eastern suburbs of Mumbai," Additional Commissioner of Police Parambir Singh told PTI.
Security has been beefed up in Mumbai on Wednesday after the Railway Police Force (RPF) received an anonymous call that some railway stations on the Western and Central lines and religious places here would be blown up.
Vijay Taneja stages Bollywood events abroad.
"We have raided the house in Gunia buildings and further investigations are presently on. We are verifying the personal details of the individual living there," a senior officer with the ATS told PTI.
A Mahindra Scorpio car with gelatin sticks was found parked near "Antilia", the multi-storey residence of Ambani, in south Mumbai on February 25.
"I will rather die than get admitted in the J J hospital," is what Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in the Malegaon blasts case had to say.
Fake Indian currency notes of Rs 1,000 seized in Mumbai recently were unlikely to have been made in a small private press, a senior police official said on Friday.
The development coincided with the Anti-Terrorism Squad filing its charge sheet in the Malegaon blasts case.
Faisal Sheikh, a prime accused in the July 11 train bombings in Mumbai, has confessed to police that he had gone to Pakistan in 2002 and attended a training camp near Muzaffarabad.
One of the prime conspirators of the blasts, Shabbir Batterwalla, had received training at a camp near Karachi in Pakistan in 2003.
With this, the total number of arrests in the case has risen to five.
With the arrest of a Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist from Uttar Pradesh who had done a recce of a dozen sensitive targets in Mumbai, the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad fears three or more terror modules could be operating in the financial capital and newer strategies will have to be devised for busting them.
Majid was part of a group of LeT operatives who used to take order from their western India commander S K Faisal, sources said.
Kavita Karkare, widow of former Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad chief Hemant Karkare who died fighting terrorists during the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, has been admitted to a hospital after she suffered brain haemorrhage and slipped into coma, police sources said.
A low intensity explosion in a State Transport bus at Manchar terminus, approximately 40 km from Pune, caused panic on Monday night even as a team of the Anti-Terrorism Squad rushed to the site to investigate the incident.Gelatine sticks were used in the device that had been kept under the back rows of seats in the bus, which was stationary at the terminus at the time of the blast, said ATS Inspector Peter Lobo.While the bus suffered minor damages, nobody was injured.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Vinod Bhatt was found dead in between Matunga and Dadar railway stations.
No link has been established to the Mumbai train blasts.
The sketches are unlikely to be released to public to maintain confidentiality of the probe.
Four persons, including a woman, who were held in Surat on Friday on suspicion of being terror suspects wanted by the Mumbai police, were released on Tuesday after it was verified that they were not the same whose sketches were released last week.
Raghuvanshi said that some of the detained are said to be from Lucknow, but refused to give further information on them saying the process of ascertaining their identity is underway.
Outside the Karkare home in Dadar (in central Mumbai) the family preferred to grieve in private. There were officers in uniform, zealously guarding the gates, allowing only friends and family to enter. The media was relegated to the opposite side of the road.
An anonymous caller, who used a public call office, to contact the Pune police, threatened to blow up the residence of Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Chief Hemant Karkare "within a couple of days", a top official confirmed today.
A former Colonel is now being probed by the ATS for alleged links with the Malegaon blast prime accused Lt Col S P Purohit and may have extended help in training cadres of Abhinav Bharat, a little-known right wing group suspected to be involved in the conspiracy.
Pankaj Phadnis who co-founded Abinav Bharat, says that it is not his fault if the men alleged to be accomplices of arrested Sadhvi Pragnya Singh Thakur had used the name of his organisation.
This is the second big arrest in Maharashtra in recent months.
Shaikh, now in judicial custody, was produced before special MCOCA judge Mrudula Bhatkar and the ATS sought his custody to carry out further investigations.
Interpol's website has a picture of the 33-year old Dawrey and lists counterfeiting and terrorism as the list of offences registered against him.
Safdar Nagori, the general secretary of the proscribed outfit Student's Islamic Movement of India, was in Mumbai on July 11, 2006, when a series of explosions in suburban trains claimed 187 lives and injured thousands. Nagori is said to be acquainted with serial train blasts case accused and SIMI's Maharashtra unit general secretary Ehtesham Siddiqui. However, investigators have not been able to establish any link between Nagori and the serial blasts.