The Hindu : Front Page : Rajasthan police arrive in city

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 14, 2007
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Rajasthan police arrive in city

Staff Reporter

To find out if there is any Hyderabad link to Ajmer blast

Similarities in Mecca Masjid and Ajmer dargah blast cases found
Saleem earlier worked as travel agent and helped people get jobs abroad

HYDERABAD: A police team from Rajasthan arrived here on Saturday to probe whether there is any Hyderabad link to the blast at the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisthi in Ajmer, even as the city police began probing whether the city resident Saleem who died there held any key to the incident.

Investigation

The focus of the investigation by Rajasthan police and their counterparts in Hyderabad now is centring on a possible Hyderabadi connection to the Ajmer blast. Apart from one of the victims being from Hyderabad, several similarities like use of same explosive device and detonation mechanism -- that of an alarm clock in a mobile phone -- pointed to the involvement of same persons in the blasts at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad and Ajmer dargah.

The Hyderabad link was further strengthened after the unexploded bomb in Ajmer was found wrapped in a Telugu daily.

Different dates

“Same newspaper was used to wrap the live bomb found in Mecca Masjid. But these two papers are of different dates,” a police officer told The Hindu.

The Rajasthan special team led by DIG (Intelligence) Srinivasa Rao is working in tandem with the Special Investigation Cell that has been investigating the Mecca Masjid blast.

The Rajasthan team would be in the city for a couple of days to collect details of the terrorist strikes and modules reported in the State earlier. Sources said the team would question the 19 youngsters arrested recently by the city police on charge of conspiring to carry out terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, the city police were ascertaining whether Saleem held any clue to the bombers. A resident of Janakinagar in Tolichowki, Saleem worked as travel agent earlier and sent people abroad for different jobs.

He ran into trouble after his Mumbai agent deceived him. As his clients from Nizamabad district mounted pressure on him demanding repayment of the money he had collected, Saleem went into hiding. A cheating case was also registered against him then.

Cosmetics shop

With the police hunting for him, Saleem went underground and surfaced in Ajmer where he set up a cosmetics shop. His wife and one of his six younger brothers, Kaleem, were living with him.

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