By IANS,
Ajmer : A court here Monday allowed the Anti-Terrorist Squad of the Rajasthan police to conduct narco test on Devendra Gupta, a suspect arrested for the 2007 bombing at the revered Ajmer Dargah Sharif that killed three people.
“The additional chief judicial magistrate has given us permission for conducting the narco test and we now plan to take Gupta to Hyderabad for it,” an ATS official told IANS.
The ATS while moving an application in the court Saturday said the test was necessary as Gupta was hiding important and critical information relating to the bombing.
Three people were killed and about 30 injured when a bomb exploded Oct 11, 2007, on the premises of the Dargah of Sufi Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, which draws hundreds of thousands of people both from India and abroad.
The ATS has so far arrested three people in connection with the bombing. Gupta and the other two – Chandrashekhar and Vishnu Prasad – are suspected to have links with Hindu rightwing group Abhinav Bharat.
The first accused Gupta, who lived in Jharkhand, reached Ajmer to visit his ailing mother when he was arrested.
Chandrashekar and Vishnu Prasad were arrested from Madhya Pradesh. The three are being interrogated under police custody.
Sources in the ATS said investigators have seized the mobile phone used to trigger the Dargah bomb.
Sources said that Gupta’s interrogation had led to fresh leads in the case and that the mastermind behind the bombing might be based in Gujarat.
The ATS has sent a team to Gujarat to track down the mastermind, they said.
“A few more people are on our suspect list. You may see more arrests in the coming days. Our investigations are expected to lead us to other states too,” an ATS official said.
“After interrogating Gupta, we have strong reasons to believe that the mastermind of the blast lives in Gujarat. Gupta has revealed his name too,” the official said.
The official said police were able to trace the accused with the help of SIM cards recovered from the bombing site. Gupta had allegedly purchased the SIM cards for the mobile handset that triggered the explosion.