Patna: Government installations and religious places in Bihar are on the target of banned terrorist outfits, including the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the groups earlier responsible for serial bomb blasts in Bodhgaya and Patna.
The revelation came to the fore during interrogation of Abdul Subhan Qureshi, who was arrested by Delhi police's special cell late on Sunday night.
A senior police officer said here on Wednesday that Qureshi alias Taukeer, had done a recce of several vital installations in Bihar, including Patna, ahead of the Friday's bomb blast in Bodhgaya.
"A team of the state police's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) will visit Delhi to interrogate Qureshi, once a close associate of arrested IM co-founder Yasin Bhatkal and Tahseen Akhtar aka Monu. Subhan had met the two in Nepal and spent a couple of years with them," the police officer said, adding that an alert has been sounded across the state.
Last Friday, a low-intensity bomb had exploded and two live bombs were seized outside the Mahabodhi Mahavihara. However, nobody was injured in the blast, which took place near the generator of a tea stall adjacent the Tibetan Monastery. Experts on explosives of National Security Guards defused the bombs.
Deputy inspector-general (Magadh range) Vinay Kumar, who is monitoring the investigation into the Bodhgaya blast case, told The Telegraph over phone on Wednesday that the investigation was proceeding on the right track.
"The district police officials have collected evidence that will lead to the arrest of the real culprits soon," he added. He, however, refused to share more information related to the investigation for security reasons. The personnel of the state ATS and the National Investigation Agency are also assisting the Bodhgaya police in the investigation, the DIG said, adding that security around the Buddhist shrine has been beefed up.
A source in the police department said the investigating officials were probing the role of the members of the sleeper cell set up by suspected terrorist operative Tausif Ahmad Khan from Gaya and former state chief of SIMI Gulam Sarwar Khan.
Additional director-general (headquarters) S.K. Singhal admitted that the police unearthed the plot of a major terrorist attack following the seizure of live bombs from Bodhgaya on January 19 this year. "It's true that terror outfits build sleeper cells to carry out their operations," he added.
A senior IPS officer said the arrest of Tausif Khan from Gaya and Nayeem Sheikh from Gopalganj indicated that sleeper cells were active in Bihar.
