E-Paper
Police yet to arrest 7/11 suspect after detention
Three days after Akram was detained by police on suspicion of 7/11 blasts, the youth is yet to be arrested.
Three days after Mohammed Akram was detained by police on suspicion of involvement in the Mumbai blasts, the youth from Dengra village in Bihar's Gaya district is yet to be arrested.
Akram, who was picked up from Dengra on Thursday as his face resembled the sketch of a suspect flashed on TV channels, has been subjected to hours of gruelling interrogation but his arrest awaits a green signal from the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Mumbai police.
Held in the lock-up of Rampur police station here, Akram betrays no signs of fear or anger and calmly refuses to admit any links to terrorist groups.
"I am innocent. I have told everything they (police) asked about myself. Now it is their job to verify the facts and let me go," Akram, who claims to run a madarsa (Islamic seminary) in Mysore, said.
Akram, the son of Gulam Mohammed, said after passing his matriculation examination from Barachatti high school in Gaya in 1991, he completed his 'maulvi' course from Rashidi madarsa in Dengra the following year and went to Lucknow for his 'kari' degree.
After getting married in May this year, he joined the Belal madarsa in Bangalore before opening his own seminary at Shantinagar in Mysore and starting a ready-made garments shop for additional income.
Asked if he was a regular visitor to Mumbai and whether he had gone there just before or after the blasts that killed 200 people and injured over 700, Akram said he had gone there over two years ago as a tourist.
