By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
Bengaluru: PDP chairman Abdunnasir Maudany, now in the custody of the Karnataka police in connection with the Bengaluru blasts, had prior knowledge of the blasts in the Chinnaswamy Stadium in the city, accused Karnataka Home Minister VS Acharya. But Maudany’s lawyer Adv Akbar Ali refuted the claim as baseless.
VS Acharya reportedly told media persons that Maudany had confessed during his interrogation of his role in the blasts, but he refused to go into the details saying his ministry does not interfere in criminal investigation and that it was not proper to comment when it was in progress. He also indicated that the police might seek an extension of Maudany’s custody which is due to end on Thursday. Meanwhile, Maudany’s lawyer Adv Akbar Ali rebutted the statement of the Home Minister saying Maudany had not made any such confession. He reportedly said that the minister’s statement was made with political motives.
Twin blasts took place outside the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru minutes before an IPL cricket match between the Mumbai Indians and the Bangalore Royal Challengers on April 17, 2010. Nearly 15 persons including some security personnel sustained minor injuries in the low-intensity blasts. Two bombs went off while three more live bombs were found and diffused later. However, the match was played after the delay of an hour.
The new statement of the Home Minister refutes his own earlier statement that the blast had no terror links, but was suspected to be carried out by the betting lobby and the underworld. The blast was seen as a way to change the match venue to the home ground of Mumbai Indians. However, the venue was not changed for that particular match but subsequent matches were shifted out of the city. Initially, there were reports connecting the blasts to terrorists but the state BJP government had then refuted all such reports. However, reports linking the blasts with the Indian Mujahideen, the ISI, the Maoists and the hawala rackets began to appear in the media three months after the blasts, in July. And that was after the additional chargesheet naming Maudany in the Bengaluru blast case was submitted in a Bengaluru court on June 11.
Maudany was arrested by the Karnataka police from Kerala on August 17 when he was on his way to surrender in court. He was named 31st accused in the 2008 Bengaluru blast case. Maudany, in the press conference he called at Anvarsseri just before his arrest, had said that he might be accused even in the Mumbai attack and the September 11 WTC attack when he is taken in the custody of the Karnataka police. He had said that he had no hopes of coming back innocent from jail as the case was very grave. He had added that the BJP-ruled Karnataka was different from Tamil Nadu, hinting at his own jail term of nearly 10 years in TN as an accused in the Coimbatore blast case before being released in August 2007 finding him innocent. Maudany has maintained that he was innocent of the charges against him and that the case was fabricated. The prime witness against Maudany in the chargesheet had approached court saying that he was forced by the Bengaluru police to sign the testimony. Another witness is Maudany’s own brother who maintains he was not approached by the police at all, and has moved court.
There were also media reports that Maudany might be interrogated by the Gujarat police as they suspected some persons accused in the Ahmedabad blast had connections with Maudany. Doubts have arisen that Maudany might be accused in other blast cases also, just like other people accused in blast cases in different states, which would make his release very hard.