The Hindu : Front Page : Police looking for 54 people “who got arms training”

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Monday, Nov 10, 2008
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Police looking for 54 people “who got arms training”

Mumbai/New Delhi: As they uncover a wide network of those involved in the Malegaon blast with linkages to an earlier explosion at Nanded too, investigators were on Sunday looking for 54 people suspected to have been given arms training at a military school in Nagpur.

Highly-placed sources involved in the investigation into the blast at Malegaon on September 29 that killed six persons, said that interrogation of suspects indicated that 54 people had been given training in handling of arms and explosives at Bhonsala Military School in 2001.

Some of them are believed to be involved in the blasts at Malegaon in 2006 and 2008 as well as the Nanded blast in 2006.

Mysteriously a laptop said to belong to Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit, an army officer arrested recently after investigations, has disappeared. The laptop is said to contain all the 54 names.

In New Delhi, CBI Director Ashwini Kumar told PTI that the investigating agency was trying to look into the links between the Malegaon and Nanded blasts.

“There is a possible link between Nanded and Malegaon blasts. We are probing it,” he said. The accused arrested by Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad may be questioned.

Sources said some of those arrested by the ATS Mumbai have told the investigators about they having been in touch with those arrested in Nanded by the CBI and subsequently charge-sheeted earlier this year.

Director of Bhonsala Military School, Suresh Joglekar said the school had answered questions posed to them by the ATS about the camp held by Bajrang Dal in 2001.

“We have provided all the details about the camp held in 2001 to the Mumbai ATS. We had been sent a questionnaire to which we have replied already,” Mr. Joglekar.

He said the questions were mainly on who had booked the school premises for Bajrang Dal in 2001 and whether the accused arrested by the CBI in Nanded blasts had been trained in that camp. — PTI

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