2 held in Nainital for Agra blast

One of the detained youths is Deepak Gupta,who is a third-year student of BA and runs a general store along with his father Suresh Chandra while the other youth Bharat is a tenant in Gupta’s house and belongs to Bharatpur district of Rajasthan. Bharat is an artisan.

Both the youths were caught from Gupta’s house at Dehliwali locality in Haldwani city kotwali police station area.

Agra DIG Asim Kumar Arun told The Indian Express that the two youths were detained for interrogation as they had made an anonymous call to a businessman of Hari Parvat area of Agra around 1 am on September 17. The caller had said,“A blast is planned in Agra tomorrow and you are sleeping.”

The businessman had then gone to sleep again assuming it a prank call,but he informed the police on September 18 after the blast took place at the hospital on September 17 in the evening,Arun said.

The blast had occurred in Hari Parvat area from where the businessman belongs.

The DIG also said that they already had traced the call made from Haldwani,but they put the particular mobile set on surveillance finding that the person kept changing the SIM cards. He changed 15 cards during last one week and then the Agra police raided the place and picked up Bharat first as the mobile set belonged to him.

He added that Bharat later told the police that Deepak used to take his mobile to make calls. When quizzed,Deepak referred name of one of his friends who runs a mobile phone shop in Haldwani. He told the cops that his friend had made the call and had kept changing the SIM cards.

Deepak also claimed that he was unaware about intentions of his friend,the DIG said.

He said that none of the three youths have any criminal antecedents. Deepak’s friend is absconding and they have sought help of Uttarakhand police to trace him.

It is yet to be corroborated if the call made to the businessman was a prank or the Haldwani youths had connection with the blast,Arun confirmed.