Police get vital clues on Bangalore blasts

Nazir, who was brought here yesterday from Bangalore by a joint team of Karnataka and Kerala police, was taken to the residence of Mohammed Fayis, one of the four youths from Kerala who was killed in an encounter in Kashmir while allegedly trying to sneak into PoK in October last year.

Police recovered an iron rod, used in making metal boxes in which explosives used in the Bangalore blasts were kept, from the residence of Fayis, they said.
Nazir was also taken to a shop in the town where the metal box used in the blast was fabricated. The shop owner identified the "terror mastermind", an officer, part of the investigating team, said.

He was then taken to Kadachira residence of Jaleel, whose arrest had led to exposure of the network used for recruiting youths from Kerala for Kashmir-based LeT to carry out subversive activities in major Indian cities, police said.

Nazir was also taken to pockets here where he held "classes" to lure the youths in the militant band. The police team was in the process of compiling data extracted from him, the official said.

The Special Investigating Team has so far arrested 23 persons who formed part of the terror network operated by Nazir. A court in Thalassery in the district has begun trial in various terror-related cases in Kerala.

Meanwhile, police took four persons into custody from Kochi and one in Kannur for their alleged role in harbouring terrorists and establishing links with Nazir.
A Karnataka police team was questioning the four, who are alleged to have helped Nazir in procuring explosives for the Bangalore blast in July 2008 and their transportation.

The team also questioned the owner of the shop at Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district from where about 200 kg of Ammonium nitrate, used for the Bangalore blast in which two persons were killed, was stolen, the officer said.

Nazir is expected to be taken to Kochi tomorrow to question him in connection with the torching of a Tamil Nadu Transport Corporation bus at Kalamassery in 2005.
The bus was allegedly set on fire to protest the continued detention of PDP leader Abdul Naser Madani in a Coimbatore jail in connection with the serial bomb blasts in February 1998.