E-Paper
CBI ready to provide all help to M'rashtra ATS
After establishing an "informal" contact with the anti-terror wing of Maharashtra police, the CBI said it was ready to extend all required help to the Anti-Terrorist Squad, probing the Malegaon blast. Do you think the impeccable image of the Army is eroding? | Surfers' Response
After establishing an "informal" contact with the anti-terror wing of Maharashtra police, the CBI on Saturday said it was ready to extend all required help to the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), probing the Malegaon blast.
The CBI has contacted the ATS which have arrested nine persons, including a serving Lt Col of the army, for their alleged role in triggering the bomb in the Muslim-dominated powerloom town.
"We have established informal communication with ATS Maharashtra and are ready to extend all required help," Press Information Officer of CBI R K Gaur said in a statement.
The CBI wanted to probe the links of the arrested accused, including Lt Colonel Srikant Purohit, with the April 2006 blast in Maharashtra's Nanded town.
The agency had investigated the Nanded blast and filed a chargesheet on March 15, 2008 against 10 people which included Sanjay Chowdhury, Yogesh Deshpande, Maruti Wagah, Gunniraj Thakur and Mahesh Pandey. They are allegedly associated to Bajrang Dal. Two people -- Himanshu Venkatesh and Naresh Laxman -- were killed while manufacturing the bomb.
The Maharashtra Police have so far arrested nine persons which include Lt Colonel Purohit, former ABVP activist Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and one Sameer Kulkarni.
Purohit was working with the Army Liaison Cell, a front of Military Intelligence, and was learning Chinese and Arabic in Panchmari in Madhya Pradesh.
Police and security agencies are trying to trace links of one of the accused to Jammu and Kashmir with a possibility that RDX could have been smuggled from there.
