Indian police arrest nine linked to serial blasts
INDIA: Police have arrested the alleged mastermind of serial bombings
last month in western India that killed 58 people and have linked him to
a banned Islamic group, an official said.
Police also arrested eight other men who were described as members of
the Students' Islamic Movement of India, a group that was banned in 2001
and has been blamed for a wave of bomb attacks across India in the last
three years.
"We believe that the network of SIMI was behind the blasts," senior
police official P.C. Pande told reporters in Ahmadabad, the capital of
Gujarat state and the site of last month's bombings.
Pande said police arrested the alleged leader of the bomb plot, Mufti
Abu Bashir, in the northern Indian city of Lucknow on Saturday. He
declined to describe what evidence police had against Bashir and the
other men.
"Today is a big day for the Gujarat police who have been able to
crack the Ahmadabad blasts case," the Press Trust of India quoted him as
saying.
Earlier this month, an Indian court lifted the ban on SIMI, saying
the government had been unable to supply any new evidence of illegal
activities. The next day, the Supreme Court reversed the decision,
saying the ban would stay in place until it could consider further
evidence to be presented by the government within three weeks. Ahmadabad,
Sunday, AP
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