The Hindu : Front Page : Over a dozen picked up for Jama Masjid blasts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 16, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Over a dozen picked up for Jama Masjid blasts

Staff Reporter

Security stepped up in and around the mosque as life returns to normal

THE MORNING AFTER: Para-military personnel man the main entrance at Delhi's Jama Masjid on Saturday. - PHOTO: S. SUBRAMANIUM

NEW DELHI: Even as normality returned to the Walled City area of the Capital on Saturday within hours of the two bomb explosions inside the historic Jama Masjid complex on Friday, the Special Cell of the Delhi police picked up over a dozen people for questioning. However, no arrests have been made so far.

Amid tight security, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with Union Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahmed visited the mosque on Saturday evening and met the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid. He also visited the hospital where the injured are admitted.

Earlier in the day, Delhi's Police Commissioner K. K. Paul took a round of the Walled City area to review the security arrangements. "We are piecing together all the evidence gathered from the blast site. About 15 people have been interrogated in coordination with intelligence agencies in connection with the blast," he disclosed

Along with those picked up for interrogation, the antecedents of at least two suspects are being probed by Special Cell officers as they have given contradictory statements about their movement at the time of the blasts. With the help of eyewitnesses the police are trying to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the explosions near the water-tank right at the centre of the historic mosque.

The police have also recorded the statements of some of the victims injured in the twin blasts.

The police have recovered portions of a battery from the scene of explosions but have not come across any timer device or wire. Though senior police officers are sure that the bombs used in the explosions were crude, they are probing how exactly they were configured.

According to the police, the nature of blasts indicates that some local group was involved. "As investigations are in an initial stage, we cannot say for sure which outfit is behind the explosions," said a senior police officer, emphasising that the motive of the blasts by all indications was not to kill but to whip up communal passions.

Following the explosions, metal detectors have been installed at all entrances to the Jama Masjid and more police personnel have been deployed in the area. All visitors to the mosque are being frisked and their belongings checked. However, all the shops in the area around the mosque remained open on Saturday.

Meanwhile, barring three of the victims, all the other injured were discharged from Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan Hospital on Saturday.

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