Bangalore blast probe: Two SIMI men in city police custody

The duo were brought on a transit warrant from Patna and were produced in a special terrorism court on Friday by the Bangalore police. The police told the court that Ali and Siddiqui were not being accused in the Church Street case but they needed to be questioned. The court handed over the duo to the Bangalore police for custody until March 7.

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Ali has been identified by the NIA as a leader of the SIMI in Ranchi, who also had connections with members of the Indian Mujahideen, while Siddiqui was allegedly the leader of the Raipur SIMI unit.

Police investigations in the Bangalore Church Street case has so far found matches between the pipe used to create the elbow bomb for the Bangalore blast and the elbow pipes used for the Patna attack. Forensic reports on the basis of post explosion analysis of chemical residues has also revealed the use of a very similar mix of explosives in the blasts at Patna and Bangalore.

A report of the CFSL, Kolkata in the Patna blast has revealed “the presence of post explosion residues of Ammonium nitrate, Aluminium, Potassium Chlorate” which is the same as the post explosion residues found in the Church Street blast case.

Investigations by the NIA into the Patna blasts has revealed that the pipes used for the bombs were bought by Haidar Ali. In preliminary questioning Ali has told the Bangalore police that he was the only one using the GI elbow pipes (2.5 inches in diameter and a 5 mm thickness) to make bombs. The Bangalore police will question Ali and Siddiqui regarding the number of pipes they bought ahead of the Patna blasts, who else had access to these pipes and regarding missing associates who may be behind the Church Street attack on December 28, 2014.

The Bangalore police had last month sourced copies of reports of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Kolkata on the IEDs used in the Patna blast as well as copies of interrogations and chargesheets in the Patna case as part of their investigations.

According to a NIA chargesheet in the investigations against Haidar Ali and his men, a laptop that was seized from the group contained details of making elbow bombs as outlined in Al Qaeda’s online magazine Inspire. “A seized laptop contained a file of ‘Inspire Magazine’, wherein the entire process of making the elbow bomb has been descriptively laid down,” the NIA has stated.

While the role of five fugitive members of the Madhya Pradesh unit of the SIMI, who escaped from a prison in Khandwa last year, was initially suspected in the Church Street blast case, police are now expanding their investigations to look at underground members of the Jharkhand and Chattisgarah unit of the SIMI who may have played a role in the blast.