Guwahati, Nov. 4: Assam police today released the sketch of a stocky man in his thirties, suspected to have planted the car bomb near the chief judicial magistrate’s court on October 30.

Sleuths said the Maruti 800 parked on the court’s premises was brought to the city from New Delhi.

“We have got definite evidence that the vehicle used in court explosion was a used car, which was bought by the perpetrators from its previous owner in New Delhi. They (perpetrators of the bomb blasts) then brought the car to Guwahati by road, replaced the original number plate with a fake one, packed it with explosives and left it at the blast site about an hour before it went off,” a police source said. “In the interest of this case, I cannot give you any more details at this stage.”

The police today also picked up Dinesh Boro — a driver — who had bought the car used in the Ganeshguri blast from Pallavi Motors, a dealer in Maruti vehicles, in 2006. Pallavi Motors had purchased the car from Tikandrajit Saikia and Jonali Saikia of Nagaon in 2006. Boro told the police that he had subsequently sold the car to Longri Boro of Shillong. Sources said Longri Boro was yet to be traced.

A second suspect, Hatem Ali, was picked up by Bongaigaon police from Dhubri today. Sources said Ali is the person to whom Naziruddin Ahmed, the prime suspect in bomb blasts, sent a text message after the blasts.

Releasing the sketch of what could be the face behind the blast, additional superintendent of police (district special branch) Jayashree Khersa said it was drawn on the basis of detailed descriptions provided by witnesses.

“Based on the descriptions, the sketch of the suspect was made by a professional portrait builder. After the sketch was completed we cross-checked with the witnesses, who said it was 70 to 80 per cent accurate,” she said.

Khersa said sketches of five more suspects were being prepared and likely to be released in the next few days. Assam police will display the sketch of its “most wanted” man in all the important public places besides sharing it with intelligence agencies. Khersa appealed to people to immediately inform the police if they have any information about the suspect.

Assam police had requisitioned the services of Calcutta-based portrait builder Debasish Banerjee to prepare the sketch of the suspect. Banerjee, who also works for the CBI and West Bengal police, had helped Assam police solve several crimes in the past.

One of the investigating officers of the case said Banerjee has sketched the portrait of the suspect based on descriptions given by witnesses, who claimed to have seen a man roaming suspiciously around the explosives-packed Maruti 800 parked at the CJM court before the blast.

“The suspect is aged below 35 years, about five feet seven inches tall, fair complexioned, has short hair, a thin moustache and a sturdy body,” said the official.

“According to eyewitnesses, the suspect was wearing a white kurta,” he said. The source said so far “nobody has come forward” to provide any description of suspects in connection with the near-simultaneous blasts at Panbazar and Ganeshguri.

He said several people might have been involved in planting the bombs and sketches of more suspects in the CJM court blast are being drawn on the basis of witnesses’ descriptions.

“The final sketch of the suspect released today will also be given to police departments of other states and central intelligence agencies. Copies of the sketch are also likely to be sent to Interpol,” the source said.

Though there is speculation that Thursday’s serial blasts were carried out by jihadis, who sneaked into India from a neighbouring country, the investigators are yet to formally name the terrorist outfit behind the serial blasts.

An intelligence official cautioned that one should not expect success straightaway because preparation of a suspect’s sketch is just the preliminary stage of investigations into the terror attacks. “City police had sketched the main suspect of a bomb blast triggered by Ulfa in front of Guwahati railway station in November 2006. In that case even after preparing the sketch, the police could not make much headway,” he recalled.

The Assam government will observe tomorrow as state mourning day to pay homage to the blast victims. The Tricolour will be lowered to half-mast in government offices. A siren will be sounded at 11am when a minute’s silence will be observed in offices and educational institutions.