JOIN USTwo men were arrested from Uttar Pradesh for their alleged involvement in the 2013 Patna serial blasts that rocked the city just hours before BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was to address a rally.
Fakruddin and Ahmed were arrested from Mirzapur in eastern Uttar Pradesh and are accused of procuring material used in the blasts. With this, six men have been arrested in this case. Five blasts were reported from within and outside the Gandhi Maidan in Patna on October 27 in which eight people, including a suspected terrorist of the Indian Mujahideen, were killed.
Four people, including Mohammed Imtiyaz Ansari who was apprehended by the public when he along with another IM accused, was assembling bombs inside a toilet at a makeshift railway station in Patna, were arrested earlier.
The NIA had taken over the investigations after Bihar expressed helplessness in handling the probe. It had announced a cash reward of up to Rs 10 lakh for information leading to arrest of five absconding accused of the banned IM terror group including Tahseen Akhtar in Bodh Gaya and Patna serial blasts cases.Besides Akhtar alias ‘Monu’, a resident of Bihar, others named by the NIA were Haider Ali alias Abdullah, Numan Ansari, Taufeeq Ansari and Mojibullah, all residents of Jharkhand.
Akthar, the right-hand man of Yasin who joined the terror outfit in 2010, is said to be involved in several blasts in Varanasi (2010), Mumbai (2011), Dilkushnagar (2013) and Bodh Gaya (2013) before his alleged involvement in the Patna serial blasts.
Investigators say he is capable of changing identity as and when he pleases and can pose as one belonging to another religion.
He could be hiding near important tourist sites in the guise of a tourist guide for cover and survey of possible targets.