New Delhi:
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Ashwani Kumar on Monday said the blasts in Ajmer Dargah in Rajasthan and Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad in the year 2007 were "linked".
"There is a link between the Ajmer blast and Mecca Masjid blast," Kumar told PTI on the sidelines of the annual D P Kohli Memorial Lecture in New Delhi.
CBI had recently joined the Ajmer blast probe to ascertain role of persons arrested by Special Task Force of Rajasthan Police in the Mecca Masjid terror strike.
Official sources said a joint team of ATS, CBI and central security agencies were questioning two of the three arrested persons - Devendra Gupta and Chandrashekar - in connection with their possible involvement in the attack in Hyderabad.
The role of the duo was suspected to be related to purchasing of SIM cards and timer devices which were used to trigger the blast in Ajmer on October 12, 2007. (
Read: Ajmer blast suspect may have RSS link)
Two pilgrims were killed and nine others, including a child, were injured in the terror attack when a crude bomb went off at the sufi shrine of Khawaja Moinuddhin Chishti in Ajmer where thousands had gathered to break their day-long Ramzan fast.
The low-intensity improvised bomb which was kept close to Aasthan-e-Noor went off a minute after the period of fast ended, indicating the similarity of execution timing with the Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blast.
The probe had suggested that modus operandi, nature of explosives and the kind of bomb used in the Ajmer blast resemble the Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad, probed by CBI.
The low-intensity improvised bomb which was kept in a tin box with a packing of iron pipes in Ajmer was similar to the contraption used in the Mecca blast, the sources said.
CBI was refraining to comment in detail on the issue officially, but sources said a team had moved in to question the duo and their links with some of the accused identified by the agency in connection with the Mecca blasts.
Five persons died in the blast and nine in the subsequent police firing outside the mosque when thousands of Muslims gathered for prayers on May 18, 2007.