SIMI men who fled Madhya Pradesh jail may be behind Panipat blast: NIA

Soon after the blast, the GRP had sought NIA’s help and a team had visited the blast site. GRP sources told The Indian Express that the NIA, in its report, has said the samples from Panipat blast site matched those used by SIMI.

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Seven persons, including six SIMI activists, had fled Khandwa jail in MP on October 1, 2013. Abu Faisal alias doctor, the mastermind of the jailbreak, was nabbed two months later. Aizazuddin and Mohammed Aslam were killed in a police encounter in Telangana in April 2015. Mehboob alias Guddu, Zakir Hussain alias Sadiq and Amjad are still at large. Abu Mirza, the seventh person, was not a SIMI member. He was sentenced to two years in jail.

A senior GRP official told The Indian Express that a GRP team went to MP for probing the matter, but “nothing much was achieved”.

A police officer in the committee formed to probe the blast said Monday that more than 200 people have been questioned by the GRP in the case. “We are also looking into the possibility of the involvement of locals,” said the official, adding that the blast was “properly planned”. He said a big tragedy was averted on January 15, as the train in which the blast took place was scheduled to go to Ambala, instead of its usual 5.30 pm Panipat-Ghaziabad run.

“Those who carried out the blast were expecting the train would go to Ghaziabad at 5.30 pm. They had chosen the time — 5.15 pm — when there would be a large number of passengers inside,” he said. “That day the train was luckily scheduled for Ambala and the departure time was also changed to 5.50 pm.”