Police to visit Thailand,Malaysia to probe links

Police said the alleged operational head of the group,Sedaghatzadeh Masoud,an Iranian national who was arrested at the Kuala Lumpur airport,was handling the entire plot. He was also in touch with Houshang Afshar Irani,the bomber who attached the explosives to the Israeli diplomat’s car on February 13 in Delhi.

Police said they cracked the case with the help of “internal investigations”,after they found that Masoud had applied for an Indian visa. Masoud was arrested on February 15.

He was allegedly part of the group that was trying to target Israeli nationals in Bangkok,when they accidentally blew up the house they were assembling a bomb in,a day after the Delhi attack. Another suspect was injured when the bomb he tried to throw bounced off a vehicle and hit him.

Police said they arrested Urdu journalist Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi after they found he was in touch with Irani on phone.

“We are still waiting for the forensic report of the magnetic bomb. We have been told that the two IEDs recovered from the house in Bangkok,where the alleged members of the module had checked in,are similar to the ones used here,” said a senior police officer.

Police said they would be visit Bangkok and Malaysia after Kazmi’s police custody is over on March 26. Kazmi,who was arrested on March 6,is in 20-day police custody.

Police said the other two Iranian suspects — Seyed Ali Sadr Mehdian and Abolghasemi Mohammad Reza — who left the Capital before the blast had come to the city specifically to carry out a recce.

“It was at Mehdian’s insistence that Kazmi visited Iran twice. When the two came to Delhi,Kazmi helped them recce the area around the Israel Embassy in his Alto car. They were interested specifically in the vehicles and the routes used by the Israeli diplomats,” said the officer.

Investigators have also sought the details of the other two bombers,Moradi Saeid and Mohammad Khazei,who were arrested in Bangkok.