An expert defuses the bomb found on Sunday. (PTI)

Ahmedabad, Aug. 3: Another live bomb was found in an upscale Surat square today, the 27th such explosive device discovered in India’s diamond hub since last Sunday.

The bomb, detected only 200 metres from the assistant police commissioner’s office in Atwalines, was kept in a bag placed behind a hoarding next to a garden packed with people on Sundays. The garden was closed later.

Other than two cars packed with explosives, 26 bombs have so far been defused in and around Varachha, the city’s diamond street.

No such bombs have been found in Ahmedabad since one was defused in the city’s Hatkeshwar area on July 27, a day after the serial explosions killed over 50 people.

Police have prepared sketches of suspects in the explosions at Civil Hospital, Narol Circle and Sarangpur in Ahmedabad, joint police commissioner Ashish Bhatia said.

These sketches haven’t been released, as they could give the accused time to flee, but circulated among police stations.

In the hospital blast, the sketch is based on the accounts of an eyewitness who told the police he saw a young man in a pink shirt around 4pm near the trauma centre, the site where the largest number of people died, the police said.

In all, 150 people were detained in Ahmedabad, half of them released after questioning. Among those still being interrogated are four Muslim students living in a Hindu-dominated house at Nikol, history-sheeters, illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and some madarsa teachers.

Mohammed Salim, a 2002 riot victim in Naroda-Patia, the scene of one of the worst bloodletting during the communal flare-up, said more than 300 Muslim youths, mostly between 20 and 25, have been questioned.

“They call anybody to police station for questioning. Once there, you have to disclose everything — where you work, the names and phone numbers of family members and relatives,” said Salim who now lives in Odhav, a colony where many Naroda-Patia victims have settled.

The police say they are drawing up a list of missing riot victims to locate them and find out their activities, sparking allegations that the blasts scanner is fixed on this group.

Tiffin boxes are under the lens, too, and things could get worse for people carrying them on bicycles.

According to Salim, anyone taking such boxes is questioned for identity checks, a process that “may take hours” and cause a delay for those headed to work. “Anyone carrying a tiffin box, a common practice, is presumed a terrorist. Young innocent Muslims are being harassed.”

But the police aren’t ready to take chances, not when identities are under a cloud. The four Muslim students in Nikol, for instance, had told their landlord they were Hindus, prompting the police to detain them for questioning.

The crime branch and the anti-terrorist squad have visited Sabarmati jail to question some undertrials arrested under the anti-terror law Pota, though no leads have emerged so far.