A terror suspect wanted in connection with blasts in several states, including the recent Hyderabad twin blasts, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in his home city of Ranchi in Jharkhand and taken away to Ernakulum on a five-day transit remand on Monday.
In what is considered a major catch in ongoing probes into terrorist incidents and the first arrest in the Hyderabad blasts case, a join team of NIA and Ranchi police arrested Manzar Imam, allegedly an Indian Muzahiddin terrorist, at Ranchi’s Kanke area on Sunday night. Sources said he was arrested while coming back to his house in Bariatu area in the Jharkhand capital. A special court of judge M.C. Narain in Ranchi, where he was produced on Monday, allowed the NIA to take him on a five-day transit remand to Ernakulum in Kerala for interrogation.
Ranchi SP (City) Vipul Shukla confirmed Imam’s arrest jointly by NIA and Ranchi police but refused to divulge any more details. There was also no word from the NIA team about the arrest. Police sources said the NIA had found Imam’s links to last month’s Dilsukhnagar twin blasts in Hyderabad in which 16 people had died.
Sources said cash worth `1 lakh, a laptop and a mobile phone were seized from Imam. Officials from the NIA, IB and Special Branch interrogated Imam for about two hours at the Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi where he was brought from the court amid tight security.
Imam, in his mid-thirties, had allegedly received terror training at a Simi camp in Kerala in 2007 and was wanted by the investigating agencies for about two years for his alleged role in the terrorist blasts in Gujarat, Kerala, Mumbai, Varanasi and Delhi, said sources. His house at Bariatu was raided by the special branch of Gujarat police in July 2011 for the serial blasts in Surat and Ahmedabad in 2008.
Probe into the Gujarat blasts had led the police to Imam and his childhood friend and neighbour Danish Riyaz, who used to work at an IT company in Hyderabad and was arrested in Baroda. Imam was wanted in at least 15 terrorist cases in Gujarat, said sources.