By IANS
Hyderabad : The Hyderabad police booked a case of conspiracy against 14 people and arrested four of them Saturday, a week after twin bombings killed 44 people, even as they said a conspiracy to target next month’s World Military Games was busted.
Those arrested were identified as Nayeem alias Sameer and Shoaib Jagirdar from Maharashtra and Kaleem and Imran from Hyderabad. Nayeem and Jagirdar were already in custody in connection with the May 18 blast at the historic Mecca Masjid here, which killed nine people.
Shoaib was re-arrested after a court granted him bail Friday in connection with a fake passport case. Kaleem was also in custody for a different case.
Ten absconders include Abdul Shahed alias Bilal, a key suspect and alleged operative of the Bangladesh-based Harkat Ul Jihad Islami (HUJI).
The blasts on Aug 25 at the Lumbini Park open-air auditorium and a popular eatery in Koti area killed 44 people and injured 53.
Police sources said that the case was booked and the arrests were made on the basis of revelations by Sameer during his narco-analysis test about a month ago. He told the investigators that 10 kg of RDX had been brought to Hyderabad.
Only 800 grams of explosives was used in the blast at the Mecca Masjid. The police were still trying to locate the remaining explosives.
Neo Gel 90, a type of ammonium nitrate, was used in last Saturday’s blasts.
The others against whom the cases were booked include Abdul Bari alias Abu Hamza, believed to be a militant based in Saudi Arabia, Tanveer, Majeed, Samad, Abdul Quader, Khaja, Kaleem, Rasheed, Azizul Haque, Rafeeuddin and Majnu.
The police sources said that with the busting of this gang, a major conspiracy to carry out terror attacks in Hyderabad has been foiled.
They also said that the group was planning to target the World Military Games to be held in the city from Oct 14 to 21 and had even visited the Gachi Bowli stadium, the main venue of the Games. The Hitec City, the IT district housing many software giants, was also on the hit list of the group.
Sameer was arrested in February this year on the Indo-Bangladesh border while he was entering India. He was kept in Mumbai Jail till June this year and then brought to Hyderabad on the suspicion of his involvement in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast.
Jagirdar, a resident of Jalna, was also arrested in May in connection with the blast but later he was booked under the Passport Act for helping Sameer to secure a passport on the basis of fake papers.
Bilal is believed to be the brain behind several terror attacks in Hyderabad including the suspected suicide bomb attack on the headquarters of the Hyderabad police commissioner’s task force in October 2005 and the Mecca Masjid blast.
Meanwhile, the death toll in the twin blasts rose to 44 Saturday as a young boy injured in Lumbini Park died in Rajkot hours after his family took him from here to the Gujarat city by a special flight.
The boy’s father Vallabh Patel had died at the amusement park after the blast. They were part of a tourist group, which happe