The investigation into the twin blasts in Hyderabad seems to be taking a new turn in the wake of the home minister of Andhra Pradesh claiming that Mufti Abu Basher was involved in the attack.
The Hyderabad police are now looking at the case with a two-pronged approach. They are looking at the role played by both Abu Basher and also Riazuddin Nasir in the blasts.
Basher was picked up by the Gujarat police and has been termed as the mastermind in the Gujarat and Bengaluru serial blasts. Nasir was picked up earlier this year by the Karnataka police and according to investigators, he had claimed that he was the one who planted the bomb at Lumbini Park, Hyderabad.
An investigating officer in Hyderabad told rediff.com that although Basher may not be the mastermind in the Hyderabad blasts, he could provide vital information regarding the incident. Basher had confessed that he had collected funds from both Hyderabad and Karnataka to organise training camps in order to carry out terror strikes.
The Hyderabad police believe that Basher, who used to work in a madarasa in Hyderabad between 2006 and 2007, may have planned the attack along with others during his stay in the city.
The Hyderabad police who interrogated Basher also pointed out that they found that he was unhappy with the system and blamed politicians for the plight of Muslims in the country. The interrogators said that although he had admitted to his role in the Gujarat blasts, he had not made any mention regarding his involvement in the Hyderabad or Bengaluru blasts as yet.
The Hyderabad police will subject him to another round of interrogation in the coming week and are hopeful that they will stumble upon some leads.
Meanwhile, the police are also looking into the role played by Nasir who incidentally is the son of Moulana Nasiruddin, one of the accused in the Haren Pandya murder case.
Although, the Hyderabad police are yet to join the dots and dish out concrete evidence, they are relying heavily on the confession made by Nasir during a narco-analysis test conducted in Bengaluru around four months back.
Nasir, during the test had said that he had carried a black bag containing the bomb to the Lumbini Park and placed it over there on that fateful day. He also said that after placing the bomb, he had slipped away from the place.
Call from jail: Even as the investigations continue in the case, the Hyderabad police is burdened with an additional responsibility regarding a call made from the Sabarmati jail in Gujarat. An Intelligence Bureau intercept pointed out to the police that a call had been made to Pakistan from a mobile phone in the Sabaramati jail. The call, according to the IB, was made after the Gujarat serial blasts.
The IB said that they are yet to find out as to who made the call and added that they have passed on the information to both the Gujarat and Hyderabad police in order to probe the matter deeper.
The Sabarmati jail houses several suspected terrorists and a considerable number of them are from Hyderabad. The Hyderabad police on their part is looking for leads from the family members of Moulana Nasiruddin who is lodged in the Sabarmati jail.
Recently, the police had also conducted a raid on the house of Moulana Nasiruddin in Hyderabad and seized CDs containing provocative material, which included a speech by Safdar Nagori.
The family members alleged that the police had picked up Moulana's son Jabir. Family members said that Jabir has returned home and that he was with the police for two days who had interrogated him.
The family members said that the police had told Jabir not to speak to the media about the incident and also added that he was not ill-treated by the police.