The Hindu : Front Page : Witnesses fail to identify Varanasi blast suspects

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Monday, Mar 13, 2006

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Front Page

Witnesses fail to identify Varanasi blast suspects

Lashkar-e-Taiba denies involvement in blasts

PEACE RALLY: Social worker Teesta Setalvad, activist Swami Agnivesh and lyricist Javed Akhtar and others taking an anti-terrorism pledge in Varanasi on Sunday. — PHOTO: PTI

Varanasi/Lucknow/Hardoi: Witnesses failed to identify the two suspects detained in Hardoi in connection with the Varanasi blasts.

The witnesses to the blasts at the Sankat Mochan temple and the Cantonment railway station could not identify Sadiq Ali and Ansar, whose faces resembled the released sketches of the militants suspected to be behind the explosions, official sources said.

Ali and Ansar were paraded a number of times before the witnesses at a hotel in the temple town on Saturday, the sources said.

The eyewitnesses said they were not the same persons who had kept a bag containing the bomb at the Godaulia market on March 7.

Shopkeepers were called to the identification parade of the duo who, along with six others, were picked up from a marketplace in Hardoi on Friday evening.

Confusion prevailed over whether they have been released, with Uttar Pradesh Home Secretary Alok Sinha and the Hardoi police taking contrasting positions.

Principal Secretary (Home) Sinha said in Lucknow that the two suspects had not yet been released. ``I spoke to the Additional Director-General of Police (Crime) and was informed that the two suspects were still being quizzed.''

He said the police were very much within their rights to question any suspect.

However, Kotwali circle officer in Hardoi Visarjan Singh Yadav told PTI that Ali and Ansar had been freed and handed over to their family members.

Picture of harmony

In Varanasi, a number of social organisations staged demonstrations condemning the March 7 blasts.

Lyricist Javed Akhtar, social activist Swami Agnivesh and human rights lawyer Teesta Setalvad participated in a peace march taken out from the BHU gate to Rajendra Prasad Ghat. The activists of a cultural organisation "Bharat Vikas Parishad" took out a procession and raised slogans advocating Hindu-Muslim unity.

A "Sadbhavna Yatra" was taken by the workers of the Nehru Yuvak Kendra from Lanka to Dashaswamedh area. A large number of Muslims attended a public meeting. Prominent leaders of various minority outfits criticised the terror attacks and urged the people of the city to maintain peace to foil the designs of the perpetrators of the blasts.

A report from Srinagar said the militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) on Saturday denied its involvement in the blasts. The LeT said it had no connection with those arrested in Uttar Pradesh and Goa. — PTI, UNI

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