After having established that low intensity blast at a house in Bijnore on Friday last was handiwork of jail-breakers who are members of banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) cell of Uttar Pradesh, has stepped up its investigation in the case.
ATS has been investigating the entire episode in coordination with Anti-Terror Squad of five different States, including Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttarakhand.
Sources in ATS disclosed that the teams had got several leads into the investigation and very soon the accused would be nabbed. However unconfirmed sources revealed that UP police had already nabbed one of the miscreants, who got injured in the blast, from a small nursing home in Bijnore where he was getting treated.
The blast took place at a house in Jatan locality in Bijnore in which at least two youths were injured. Police had retrieved the CCTV footage near the clinic of a doctor, two km from Jatan locality, have revealed that six youths who went to the clinic, are all possibly linked to the banned SIMI and other terror outfits. “The modus operandi of the blast suggested that it could be a handiwork of banned outfit,’ the sources said.
Scanning of the footage by the State police and Anti-Terror Squad in UP, have strongly pointed towards five of the six youths, being the ones who escaped from the Tantya Bheel Jail in Khandwa on October 1, 2013 morning.
The suspects now on the run from Bijnore, included Ejazuddin, Mohd Aslam, Zakir Hussain, Mehboob alias Guddu and Amjad, who were among the seven jailbirds, who escaped from Khandwa jail nearly a year ago.
One of them Mehboob alias Guddu had sustained severe burns in the incident. Police had recovered fake identity proofs of Khandwa, Ujjain and Nandurbar from the house where the blast took place. They were staying under fake identity of Hindu youths at the house of an octogenarian widow since July. The search of the house in Jatan locality has led the UP police to recover a gas cylinder, timer device, wires and other incriminating material, besides a 9 mm pistol and laptop.