Chennai: A CBCID team has gone to Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh to seek custody of three SIMI activists suspected to be the conspirators behind the Chennai Central twin blasts that killed a woman software professional and injured others on May 1, 2014.
According to a CBCID source, the TN sleuths will have to approach the local court in MP to get custody of the suspects. “The team is expected to start the procedure there on Monday and after completion of formalities and if the local court permits, the suspects will be brought to Chennai for further interrogation,” a CBCID source said.
The suspects are Zakir Hussein (33), Sheik Mehaboob (26) and Amjad Khan (26). Two other suspects Mohamed Aslam and Mohamed Aijajuddin were killed in an encounter in Telangana in April last year. “We are certain of the involvement of Zakir Hussein and Sheik Mehaboob. We may have to question the third suspect to know his involvement,” sources added.
The three suspects were nabbed in Rourkela in a joint operation by Odisha and Telangana police in February this year. A CB-CID team from TN, which went to Rourkela after the arrest of the wanted SIMI activists, had interrogated the wanted men there. At that time the suspects had confessed that they had planted two bombs in the train before it left Bengaluru station.
The bombs were not meant to go off in Chennai or Narendra Modi's BJP rally in AP as reported at that time, but were aimed against the people of Assam who travelled in large numbers in that train,” sources said.
Tension had been brewing between Bodo militants and Muslim migrants in Assam at that time after Muslims refused to heed the election boycott call of the militants. The bombers had faced a limitation in timing the blasts because they had only a 12-hour window in their timer devices.
The CBCID investigators here were trying to locate the suspects, who had left behind only digital evidence like mobile phone call locations in the last many months. The three along with another, who had escaped from MP jail, were involved in many other crimes across the country, according to NIA which has announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh last July. The three had escaped from prison, with Mohammed Aijajuddin, Mohammed Aslam and Abu Faisal. While two were killed in an encounter in Telangana's Nalgonda district in April 2015 Abu Faisal, the leader of the group, was nabbed by the police in December 2013.
