The suspected militants at the holiday magistrate’s court in Mumbai. (Fotocorp)

Mumbai, May 14: Investigations after the recent arrest of suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba militants have indicated that some of them took refuge at an MLA hostel for a few hours before driving towards Aurangabad last week.

Abdul Azim alias Raja, the driver of one of the two cars from where a huge cache of weapons was seized, told officials of Maharashtra police’s anti-terror squad that he arrived along with the others in Mumbai on Monday. They stayed a few hours at the MLA hostel in Colaba in south Mumbai before heading to Aurangabad, he said.

Accommodation in the hostel ? a VIP residential complex ? is provided only after a written recommendation from the MLA who wants to stay there. The police are trying to ascertain whose suite the suspected militants stayed in and how.

Azim, a resident of Beed, is one of the four suspects arrested in connection with the arms haul on Tuesday near Aurangabad. Thirty kilograms of RDX, AK-47 rifles, ammunition and hand grenades were recovered from the Tata Sumo they were travelling in.

The police teams that were tracking the group’s movements following intelligence tip-offs swooped on them on Manmad-Aurangabad Road. Three of them were arrested but the driver escaped to a forested area near the Ellora caves. He surrendered to Aurangabad police two days later.

By then, the police assisted by teams from Nashik and Aurangabad had hunted down another car ? a Tata Indica ? laden with arms. It was found abandoned near Malegaon near Nashik yesterday morning. But it did not have the weapons, which were later traced to Ankai Fort, 6 km from Manmad. Fifty hand grenades, 206 live rounds and an AK-47 assault rifle had been packed in two boxes that were lying inside the fort.

The police suspect the militants were carrying the cache in the Tata Indica but after the Sumo was intercepted, the group panicked and dumped it.

Yesterday, five more men were arrested.

The suspected militants, whose identities have been kept secret, were produced before a holiday magistrate who remanded them in police custody till May 24.

Joint commissioner K.P. Raghuvanshi, who is heading the squad, hinted that the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act could be invoked against those arrested.

The police teams are combing Nashik, Aurangabad, and Beed districts for J. Ansari, a key Lashkar operative who was reportedly supposed to take delivery of the two consignments.

Police sources said the arms were meant to be taken to either Gujarat or Andhra Pradesh for possible attacks.