By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
Ahmadabad: The Crime Branch of Ahmadabad Police has claimed on August 5, 2008 to have got the sketches of seven suspected people allegedly in connection with the Ahmadabad serial bomb blasts.
Talking to media the Joint Commissioner of police, Ahmadabad confirmed it and said a team of experts is studying the sketches and if necessary the police will show these sketches to the eye witnesses of the blasts.
The Crime Branch has already released the sketches of three suspects.
More importantly even weeks after the serial blast the police has failed to get even a single concrete lead because of which virtually there hasn’t been any progress in the investigation.
Till now their only targets have been the Muslim youths with alleged connection with the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).Police has taken hundreds of Muslim youths in Ahmadabad and Surat in custody and interrogated them but they didn’t get any conclusive lead.
SIMI is a group of radical Muslim youths which was formed in Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh) in April 1977 and banned post 9/11. A special tribunal of Delhi High Court lifted the ban on Aug 5th, saying that the government had failed to provide sufficient evidence to justify the continued curbs on the fundamentalist group. Supreme Court stayed the tribunal order the very next day.
In the last 10 years SIMI has been slapped with several bans and scores of its members put behind bars. In the last 17 cases against SIMI, all accused people have been acquitted. There has not been any conviction in cases related to SIMI.
It remains to be seen how this verdict is going to influence the attitude of the investigative agencies towards SIMI which according to some human rights workers and Muslim intellectuals is hostile and prejudiced.
As far as the Ahmadabad serial blasts and Surat bombs are concerned the police believe that the people responsible for the blasts must have got local assistance, and it is those local elements that it is looking for.
That is why the combing operation is going on in different areas particularly the Muslim localities.
In the mean time police has claimed that they have got some lead in the Ahmadabad serial bomb blasts. According to some senior police officers they have got to know the place from where the gas cylinders which was used in the civil hospital blasts. According to the owner of the shop who was interrogated by the police, two youths bought the cylinders few days before the blasts.
Gas cylinders were used in the blast at the Civil hospital which killed twenty six people including two doctors.
In Mumbai, police has arrested four people in connection with theft of cars that were later used in the blasts.