Thursday 7 November 2013

24-year-old girl funded Patna blasts: NIA

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the recent serial blasts in Patna and Bodh Gaya, is on the lookout for a Bokaro college girl who is suspected to have helped the Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative.

The 24- year-old girl — a resident of the Ormanjhi locality in Ranchi — allegedly helped key terror accused Uzair Ahmed and Hyder Ali raise funds to carry out blasts at Gandhi Maidan in Patna on October 27 and at Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya on July 7.

This is the first time when the name of a girl — said to be enrolled at a college in Bokaro — has come under the scanner for her alleged involvement in the IM operations.

Sources said she used to collect “donations” from different sources at the behest of Uzair and Hyder to help the IM’s Ranchi module.

Uzair, (45), was arrested by the NIA from Delhi three days after the Patna blasts for his association with the IM and the SIMI. Hyder still remains at large.

The NIA is learnt to have known about the college girl’s close association with Uzair on the basis of the call records of his cell phone.

According to sources, Uzair introduced the girl to Hyder and Tehseen Akhtar — the alleged masterminds of both the blasts in Bihar.

After the arrest of Yasin Bhatkal, the IM handed over the responsibility to set up the Ranchi module to Akhtar, a teacher at a Ranchi school. He had subsequently worked with Hyder to set up the IM module in Ranchi.

The investigations have revealed that the IM recently lured many youth from Jharkhand, who had no criminal antecedents, to work for the terror outfit.

It has also come to light that the IM operative had paid up to ` 10,000 to some students to plant explosives at different locations around Gandhi Maidan — the venue of Modi’s rally in Patna.

Meanwhile, the NIA on Wednesday arrested Shamsher Ansari, an other alleged IM terrorist, in Ramgarh in Jharkhand after tracking his cell phone.

The NIA is on the lookout for three other Ranchibased suspects — Mujibal, Taufiq and Numan — who are absconding. The NIA had raided a lodge in Ranchi to arrest Hyder earlier this week, but he was not found. The agency, however, found many live bombs and vital documents about the IM plans hatched for Bodh Gaya and Patna blasts.

No comments:

Post a Comment