Hyderabad:
Investigators working to unravel the plot behind Thursday's bomb blasts in Hyderabad have reportedly detained six people and questioned many more while close circuit television or CCTV footage has revealed a possible suspect who may have planted the bombs. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Hyderabad on Sunday.
Here are the latest developments:
Sources say the suspect caught on CCTV footage from Dilsukhnagar, the blast site, is seen coming on a bicycle with a bag hanging in front, which the police believe carried the bombs. When he returned, he was on foot, not bicycle. (CCTV footage shows 'suspect' on bicycle)
Hyderabad police chief Anurag Sharma said today that no arrests had been made or terror group identified, and while evidence was being carefully put together, it was too early to draw conclusions. He said police had been deployed in full strength after receiving the intelligence alert before the blasts. (Dilsukhnagar limps back to normalcy)
To gather more evidence, the National Investigation Agency or NIA is raiding various places: Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, Darbhanga in Bihar and Nanded and Beed in Maharashtra. (Did Maharashtra anti-terror squad fail to share leads?)
Sources say the NIA have also made enquiries at Chanchalguda and Cherlapally jails in Andhra Pradesh, where alleged Indian Mujahideen operatives are lodged.
Bomb squad and forensic sources have told NDTV that the blasts have Indian Mujahideen signatures - the use of ammonium nitrate and other powerful explosives like the Tri-Nitro Toluene.
The Hyderabad Police have spoken to Abdul Wasey Mirza, a survivor of the Dilshukhnagar blasts as well as the Mecca Masjid blast in 2007. "The police asked me several questions. I have answered them all," Mr Mirza said. The police say he is not a suspect. (It's my fate that I was at both blast sites, says survivor)
In Parliament, the union government has faced scathing attacks from the BJP-led Opposition, which says intelligence warnings issued before the blasts were mishandled and ignored. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde refuted the Opposition's accusations and said yesterday that the government took "necessary steps" but these could not be elaborated for security reasons.
Mr Shinde said in Hyderabad yesterday that the intelligence inputs were not specific, to which BJP leaders asked sarcastically if the government expected intelligence alerts to include "door numbers and street numbers" as well. (Intelligence warning was shared with five cities: Shinde)
16 people died and more than a hundred were injured in the two blasts. Improvised Explosive Devices, with timers, were placed on bicycles near a small restaurant in Dilsukhnagar and went off just after 7 pm, within five minutes of each other.
Investigators say the bombs were packed with huge amounts of iron nails and bolts and ammonium nitrate tied together with copper string. This made the explosions very powerful. (Blast triggered by IEDs)
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