The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad on Monday claimed to have made a major breakthrough in the July 13 triple blasts in Mumbai last year that claimed 27 lives, with the arrest of two of the accused hailing from Bihar.
Looking for clues to Wednesday's serial blasts, Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad has fanned out teams to various locations across the country and prepared a sketch of the suspect based on eyewitness accounts.
In a bid to get clues on the latest serial blasts in Mumbai, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad and the Mumbai Crime Branch have questioned a number of people including two arrested Indian Mujahideen operatives, and those having links with underworld gangs and other anti-social elements. "A number of people have been questioned so far but the exact figure we cannot tell you. Those questioned include two IM members who were recently arrested," said an ATS official.
Two alleged Indian Mujahideen operatives, who provided vehicles used in 2008 serial blasts in Gujarat that killed 56 and wounded over 200, have been arrested by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad.
Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Rakesh Maria on Tuesday deposed as a defence witness before a sessions court in Mumbai in the infamous television executive Neeraj Grover murder case.
S M Mushrif says, in this brief interaction with rediff.com, that he would not allow the issue of Karkare's death to die down unless and until the matter is probed.
In response to an RTI query filed by Gulzaar Azmi, general secretary (legal cell) of a socio-cultural organisation, Jamiat Ulama-E-Maharashtra, it was found that Sadashiv Abhimanyu Patil, a constable attached to Nashik unit of ATS, had sent Rs 1,000 thrice to accused Abrar Ahmed through money order in August, September and November 2008 from his residential address at police headquarters in Nashik.
Close on the heels of arrest of two prominent Naxals in the neighbouring Thane district on Monday, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad on Friday said they have nabbed four more members of the group, including three women, from Pune and Nashik.
Three security establishments in Nashik including army's Deolali camp were recceed by arrested Lashkar-e-Tayiba terror suspect Shaikh Lalbaba Mohammed Hussain for a Lahore Police Academy-type attack, Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad said on Monday.
Sanatan Sanstha member Prashant Juvekar, arrested for his alleged role in the 2009 Goa blast, was included in the group tasked with engineering the explosion due to his 'aggressiveness' in propagating the outfit's ideology, Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad officials said on Tuesday.
Desperate for a breakthrough in the July 13 triple blasts, the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad is now looking to question two recently-arrested alleged Indian Mujahideen operatives.
A youth was arrested and arms and ammunition were recovered from his possession in Mumbai on Thursday, police said. Acting on a tip-off, Maharashtra Anti-terrorism Squad arrested 28-year-old Kailash Singh from suburban Chembur and recovered 10 pistols, one carbine and 68 cartridges from his possession, Anti-Terrorism Squad chief K P Raghuvanshi said.
Praveen Mutalik, an absconding accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case, has been arrested from Karnataka by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad.
Gangster Suresh Pujari, wanted in several extortion cases in Mumbai region and Karnataka, has been deported to India, a senior police official said on Wednesday.
The Union home ministry on Tuesday acknowledged there was a lack of coordination between the Delhi police and the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad in the probe into the July 13, 2011 serial blasts in Mumbai but downplayed the rift between them.
As Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Rakesh Maria claimed a breakthrough in the 13/7 Mumbai blasts case on Monday he seems to have ruffled quite a few feathers. Though he junked out reports of a tiff with the special cell of the Delhi police in carrying out the probe, insiders say the arrests of the two Darbhanga operatives were an attempt by the ATS to gain an upper hand in the investigation.
Fringe elements of the underworld may be involved in the serial blasts that shook Mumbai on Wednesday night and claimed 19 lives. The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad has started questioning some elements of the underworld and their informers to garner more clues about the case. "A turf war has been going on between the underworld and terror outfits for some time. We believe that the underworld may have carried out blasts to step up the heat on terror networks," said a source
Nine months after a powerful bomb exploded at the German Bakery in the posh Koregaon locality in Pune killing 17 people, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad on Saturday filed its chargesheet against the alleged mastermind of the attack Himayat Baig. Assistant Public Prosecutor for ATS A V Ausekar told judicial magistrate Swarup Bose that the accused had committed heinous crimes against the state of India.
K P Raghuvanshi removed as the chief of Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, said sources from Maharashtra's home department on Thursday.
They were in police custody till Thursday and were produced before the Mazgaon court, where the ATS sought their further remand to interrogate them and ascertain the identity of the 'uncle', who was instructing them from Pakistan.
The Centre is unhappy with the manner in which certain information was made public by Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad chief K P Raghuvanshi after the arrest of two suspects planning to carry out terror attacks in Mumbai, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said on Wednesday.
Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad is grappling with a severe manpower crunch with 283 posts of the total 732 lying vacant, two-and-a-half years after a panel set up to probe state police's response to the Mumbai attacks recommended streamlining the force.
The Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad may invoke the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act against the two alleged Lashkar-e-Tayiba operatives, one of them a Pune blast suspect, arrested last week.
A local court in Nashik on Tuesday extended the police custody of alleged Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative Shaikh Lalbaba Mohammed Hussain alias Bilal, nabbed by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad in Nashik last week.
The National Investigating Agency is unlikely to oppose the bail pleas of the nine accused arrested by the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad in the 2006 Malegaon bomb blast case when they come up for hearing this week.
The Volvo car with the Maharashtra registration number was seized on Monday, the official said, adding there is no clarity so far on who owned this car.
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.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad has got a breakthrough in the 13/7 Mumbai blasts case. The ATS team has zeroed in on the thief who stole the bike on which the explosive that triggered the Zaveri Bazaar blast was allegedly planted.
The Goa police on Monday made the first arrest in the Margao blasts, in which two persons were killed, when a man with alleged links to a Hindu right-wing group 'Sanatan Sanstha' was detained and searches were carried out at the outfit's office.The two victims, who were killed in the blast, were activists of the Sanstha. The police had earlier detained five members of the that which has recently come under the scanner of security agencies.
Two suspects arrested for allegedly plotting terror strikes on ONCG headquarters and two markets in prime areas in Mumbai had received money from a Pakistani national based in Dubai through a UAE financial firm, says the chargesheet filed by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in a local court.
Claiming it has got "very good" leads from the sketch of the suspect behind the July 13 serial blasts in Mumbai, Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad on Wednesday indicated that the suspect hails either from the central or northern part of the country.
Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, probing the July 13 serial blasts, is taking the assistance of a foreign firm to enhance quality of the CCTV footages recorded at the three locations, a senior police official said.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which arrested Pune blast prime suspect Abdul Samad Bhatkal, is probing the possible nexus between underworld and terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM) in the case.
Yaseen Bhatkal, a distant relative of Indian Mujhahideen founder Riyaz Bhatkal, has been named the mastermind of the Pune blast by Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad. A blast in German bakery, one of the city's most popular eateries, had left 17 people dead and many more injured on February 13. Yaseen hails from the coastal town of Bhatkal in Karnataka and has been involved in terror activities since 1998, say sources in the Intelligence Bureau.
Yasin Bhatkal, believed to be a relative of Indian Mujahideen founder Riyaz Bhatkal, has been identified by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad as one of the main conspirators of the Pune blast, in which 17 people were killed. Indian Mujahideen is suspected to be behind the blast in Pune's upscale Koregaon Park area, an ATS source said. The ATS, which has submitted a preliminary report on investigations into the terror attack -- the first after the terror siege on Mumbai.
Pragya will undergo brain-mapping, polygraph and lie detector tests at Forensic Science Laboratory in suburban Santa Cruz, ATS Director Rukmani Krishnamurthy said. The Nashik court had permitted the ATS to conduct these psychological tests on Sadhvi.
A 35-year-old man, suspected to have Maoists links and wanted by West Bengal police, has been arrested from his hideout in Mumbai, Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad said on Tuesday.
A 1990-batch officer of the Maharashtra cadre, Waze, also known as an "encounter cop", was earlier suspended after his arrest by the National Investigation Agency in the SUV-cum-murder case on March 13.
Setting at rest the controversy that slain Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare died because of defective bulletproof jacket, the postmortem report has revealed that he received five bullets in and around his neck.
The Maharashtra Anti-terror Squad made a very important arrest in the Malegaon blast case late Monday night. Praveen Muthalik, who is said to be one of the executors of the blast was arrested and later remanded in police custody till February 14. He had been absconding for nearly two years.