‘Hindu group involved in Orissa, Karnataka blasts’

A Hindu extremist group called Abhinav Bharat, suspected of executing bomb blasts in Malegaon in Maharashtra in September 2008, was also responsible for acts of terror in Orissa and Karnataka later that year , the interrogation reports of two group members suggests.

A Hindu extremist group called Abhinav Bharat, suspected of executing bomb blasts in Malegaon in Maharashtra in September 2008, was also responsible for acts of terror in Orissa and Karnataka later that year , the interrogation reports of two group members suggests.

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Lieutenant Colonel Purohit, 38, a former Indian army officer accused in the Malegaon case and a member of the group, told Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur, 41, a co-accused in the case, that the group had executed the two other blasts, Thakur told interrogators, sources said. The police had so far made little headway on these two cases. He also told her the Orissa blast had killed 10 to 12 people and the one in Karnataka 25 to 30 people, Thakur said.,

Thakur, who is now admitted in Mumbai’s JJ Hospital, told investigators that Purohit, who is in Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai, told her this in Jabalpur before the police arrested her in October 2008.

A military intelligence report corroborates this: it says that Purohit told army investigators that the group had carried out the attack in Orissa, other sources said.

“Various investigating agencies have prepared reports about these accused,” said one source on condition of anonymity . “These will now further help the National Investigation Agency probe their links.”

In yet another investigation report, Sadhvi has narrated her interaction with Ramji Kalsangra, who allegedly planted the bomb in Malegaon in 2008 and who has been evading arrest for more than two years.

Sadhvi told interrogators that she had met Ramji on October 8, 2008, nine days after the Malegaon bomb blast at an inn at Ujjain, where he told her that he had used her LML Freedom motorcycle to plant the bomb. Spilling the beans

Meanwhile the NIA will for the first time question Thakur for her suspected involvement in the Modasa blast case after a special MCOCA court on Tuesday allowed NIA to question her. “We will be meeting Sadhvi soon,” said a NIA source involved in the investigation.