BeyondHeadlines Staff Reporter
New Delhi: A team of the Special Cell of Delhi Police and Uttar Pradesh Anti Terrorists Squad arrested one person called Gulfam on May 27 in Pilkhuwa Village in Ghaziabad District, Uttar Pradesh, during a joint operation, in connection with the May 25 blast outside the Delhi High Court. A day earlier, in the afternoon of May 26, a team of the Special Cell had picked up a cleric from Nizamuddin locality of Delhi in that connection.
The cleric is being questioned extensively, but the police have refused to give details about his role. About Gulfam, officials said he was detained following a probe about people working in chemical units, who could have provided the explosives. The police alleged that Gulfam had links with a terrorist who used to live in his village many years ago. Cops suspect the explosives were procured from Pilkhuwa and are looking for one Nafees, whose whereabouts are not known.
“We managed to arrest Gulfam in Pilkuha Village in Ghaziabad District,” special Director General of police Brij Lal informed the media on the evening of May 27.
The police claim that Gulfam’s accomplice Nafees is “absconding.” Meanwhile, the joint team has picked up about 10 other people for interrogation.
Lal said that both the suspects belonged to Pilkuha where they were working as roadside hawkers.
“We have reason to believe that they were sleeper modules of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), which has been involved in carrying out blasts in different parts of the country.”
He added, “There were two batches of IM activists comprising of a team of well-trained terrorists and another of trainees.”
He said that even as the nature of explosives used in the Delhi blast was quite lethal, the blast remained a low intensity one without causing the intended devastation.
“This was because we think that the job was entrusted to novices, and they could not carry it out properly. Thankfully they did a shoddy job, thereby saving any major damage,” he said.
Cops also suspect somebody had come to meet two jailed alleged IM members, Shehzad and Hakim, recently. They are now studying the visitors’ registers at Tihar.
On the evening of May 27, Police Commissioner B K Gupta attended a meeting at the high court chaired by Chief Justice Deepak Misra and a few other senior judges to review the security of the complex. Earlier on May 26, Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) teams, which went to the blast site for the second time, could not find the electronic timer device. They said it was probably lost in the hullaballoo after the blast.
Meanwhile, the Intelligence Bureau sent out a written bomb alert to all the states. The input, a source said, listed the material recovered from the Delhi bomb — brass pieces, gelatin sticks, wires attached to an electronic timer, battery, nails and nitrate-based explosive — and asked the states to keep a check on sale of such materials anywhere.
Police have already questioned 60 people in Sadar Bazar, Sarojini Nagar, Nizamuddin and other areas in search of the place from where the bag and the raw material were bought.
In search of place from where bag of ‘Perfect’ brand was bought and materials used in bomb, Delhi Police has questioned around 60 persons including dealers in Sadar Bazar, Sarojini Nagar, Nizamuddin and other areas. Sources said they are also looking for few more persons in Pilkhuwa area. The CFSL has not formally sent its report to the Delhi Police, but sources said the material used in explosion was ammonium nitrate.
A crude bomb went off outside the Delhi High Court complex around 1.15 p.m. on May 25. No casualty was reported.
The explosion took place near the right-hand front wheel of a car in a parking bay, close to the boundary wall of the court complex.
Less than 250 gram explosive was used in the low intensity blast, Delhi Police Commissioner B.K. Gupta said in a preliminary inquiry report given to the home ministry on May 26.
