After strong links were established between the Mecca Masjid, Ajmer, Malegaon blasts and four other terror-related cases, a decision has been taken that all these incidents will now be probed by a single body -- the National Investigating Agency.
The NIA will now look into the investigation of five cases, which include the Malegaon blasts of 2006 and the Mecca Masjid blasts case currently under the Central Bureau of Investigation, 2008 Malegaon blasts which were till now probed by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, Ajmer blasts case handled by the Rajasthan ATS, the Sunil Joshi murder case, which was till now being investigated by the Madhya Pradesh police. Along with this the NIA will also continue its probe in the Samjautha Express blasts and the Modasa blast.
Sources say that it was necessary to bring all these cases under the aegis of one agency after ongoing investigations and confessions of suspects revealed that these cases were interlinked. Although the CBI, which is also a central agency, could have taken up these cases, it was handed over to the NIA since this agency was specially formed and the NIA Act 2008 was introduced only to probe cases specific to terrorism.
A source added that the decision to hand over the cases to the NIA came following confession of Swami Aseemanand, a key accused in the 2007 Samjautha blast case. During the probe of the Samjautha case, it came to the fore that the same men played a role in all the six other cases.
The missing links in the case are Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange, reportedly named by Aseemanand, and the NIA has now launched a massive hunt for the duo. Although the NIA had managed to gather a lot of information regarding the Samjautha blasts case, it was becoming tough to probe the case further since there were six other cases, which were interlinked.
The NIA was finding it difficult to go ahead with the investigation as they heavily depended on other agencies to give them required information