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Hyderabad police in Kolkata

Special Correspondent

To probe links between blast suspect Shahed alias Bilal and Sameer

KOLKATA: A Hyderabad police team is in the city to meet officials of West Bengal's Criminal Investigation Department in connection with the May 18 blast at the Mecca Masjid in the Andhra Pradesh capital.

The special police team is expected to investigate reports of a link between the prime suspect in the blast, Shahed alias Bilal, and Sheikh Sameer, who was arrested by the Border Security Force while sneaking into West Bengal from Bangladesh at Petropole in North 24 Parganas district in April, sources said.

Sameer who, it was learnt, belonged to the Laskar-e-Taiba, in the course of a narco-analysis test confessed to have met Shahed.

Now in the custody of the Mumbai police in connection with the July 2006 train blasts in July 2006, Sameer is alleged to have helped operatives of various militant organisations enter West Bengal from Bangladesh. He had connections in the city, it is suspected.

The Hyderabad police were in touch with their counterparts here, after a mobile phone was found at the site of the May 18 blast. It had a SIM card, said to have been purchased by a person who claimed to belong to Rupnarayanpur in West Bengal's Asansol area.

The State CID then said that nobody was either detained or arrested in connection with the SIM card purchase, even though Jamtara police authorities in Jharkhand claimed that the West Bengal police had indeed held one person from a town located in their jurisdiction close to the border between the States. The person was released later.

A senior State police official confirmed that the Hyderabad police were seeking certain information to facilitate their investigations.

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