5 SIMI men who fled MP jail suspects in Bangalore blast

The five stayed in rented houses in Karnataka’s Dharwad, Yadgir and Hospet using fake identities between December 2013 and September 2014, sources said, adding that efforts are on to identify if they were associated with any local SIMI cadre during their stay.

The five have already been linked to a robbery of Rs 46 lakh from an SBI branch in Telangana’s Karimnagar district on February 1, 2014, a blast on Bangalore -Guwahati express on May 1, 2014 that killed a woman, a blast near Pune’s Dagadusheth Ganesh temple on July 10, 2014 and an accidental blast in UP’s Bijnor on September 12, 2014.

Security agencies linked the five to the crimes through a cellphone they abandoned at the Bijnor house.

CCTV footage from a Bijnor clinic where an injured Mahboob was taken and the SBI branch they robbed have also provided evidence.

Call data and SIM cards linked to the phone have thrown up an elaborate picture of the gang’s network across 12 states, sources said. The gang’s members have been constantly crisscrossing the country and some visited Bangalore briefly, they added.

One number linked

to the phone was a Karnataka Reliance number 7847980513, which was obtained using ID of a Dharwad house owner Shivaji Rao Kulkarni. Investigations have revealed that three of the five stayed at Rao’s house between December 2013 and March 2014 using fake names, sources said. They added that the number was used to make 17 calls to contacts in Karnataka. The gang procured SIM cards using borrowed IDs and abandoned them frequently, sources said.

“Similarities between the three blasts with regard to the pipe bomb and wires used suggested involvement of the SIMI fugitives. The modus operandi hints at the involvement of this group,’’ a senior police officer said.

Police are awaiting a forensic report to assess the kind of explosive used in the blast. Ammonium Nitrate, used in earlier blasts by Indian Mujahideen and SIMI -linked operatives, has not emerged as the explosive substance in this case, sources said. They have started to analyse CCTV footage of Church Street but could not make much progress owing to poor image quality.