A week after the arrest of Abdul Samad Bhatkal from Mangalore, the Anti-Terrorism Squad has not managed to find any substantial evidence against him to nail him in the Pune blast case. Ironically, when he was arrested, he was touted as a “prize catch” in the Pune blast, but on Tuesday, the ATS in its remand application filed in court
has mentioned that they did not need his custody in the case. Further, the application did not mention anything about his involvement in the German Bakery blast in Pune.
Interestingly, on the day of his arrest, even Union home minister P. Chidambaram had congratulated the ATS on making the first arrest in the Pune blast case. However, the enthusiasm seems to have ebbed. A couple of days earlier, Mr Chidambaram sidestepped questions on Samad and urged “caution”. What made Samad such a controversial figure right from the onset was the fact that both the Indian Mujahideen founders Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal are originally from Bhatkal town in Karnataka.
On Monday, rejecting Samad’s bail application, the court remanded him to judicial custody till June 14. The ATS that had arrested him from Mangalore airport in May had booked him in a 2009 arms case.
Samad (23) sought bail soon after he was remanded to judicial custody till June 14 by the metropolitan magistrate M.V. Morale in connection with a 2009 arms seizure case. He wanted bail on the grounds that there were no serious allegations against him and that three other accused, who were arrested in the arms case last year, were already out on bail. The court rejected the bail application stating that investigations were still in progress and releasing the accused now would not be safe. According to the ATS, Samad had provided a foreign brake-frame revolver and six live cartridges to Hajimran Gulman Mohammed, Afzal Ahmed Sheikh and Suleiman Mohammed Patel in August 2009.
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Ajmer blast accused sent to custody
Narayan Bareth
Jaipur
June 1: A local court in Ajmer has sent Ajmer blast accused Lokesh Sharma to jail till June 14 after the police produced him before the court of the chief judicial magistrate on Tuesday. He was taken into custody from Madhya Pardesh’s Chhindwara for his alleged involvement in the blast.
The defence made a request to the court saying that the suspect was subjected to torture while under police custody for interrogation. The defence lawyer also sought a medical examination of Sharma for injury marks on his body. The Anti Terrorism Squad had arrested three persons for the blast case, and first arrest was made from Ajmer, when an activist of a Hindu outfit, Devendra Gupta, arrested on May 1.
The police also arrested Chandarshekhar, a local activist in Mahu in Madhya Pradesh. All the three accused have been sent to judicial custody as the police completed its investigation. The blast took place at the shrine of Khawaja Moinuddin Chisty in 2007, which claimed three lives. The ATS is also after a Swami, who the ATS believes played a key role in the blast. The ATS had sent its team to Gujarat to arrest the Swami, but failed.