Patna, Nov. 7: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has intensified operations and sounded alert against the Indian Mujahideen after the recovery of maps of several religious places during the raid at a Ranchi lodge on Monday.
The agency, which formally took over the probe of the Patna serial blasts yesterday, is learnt to have sent advisory to the state governments asking them to keep surveillance on the places, the maps of which were found from a room of the lodge at Hindpiri in Ranchi.
Sources in the NIA said the hand-drawn maps of the places on the radar of the terror outfit had been encircled in red, which suggested that the terror group had done a recce of those places.
The places were located in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.
The maps of Patna’s Gandhi Maidan and the Mahabodhi Mahavihara in Bodhgaya were also found.
What is intriguing is that the maps showed the locations where the bombs were to be placed by the IM operatives owing allegiance to the Ranchi module headed by Tahsin Akhtar alias Monu, the second-in-command after Yasin Bhatkal.
Bhatkal was arrested from Raxaul on India-Nepal border on August 29.
An investigating officer said the documents with plans and names of the planters of the improvised explosive devices fitted with timers were found during the search of the room (number 108) rented to Mohammadd Mujibal Ansari and Salim Ansari, the suspected IM operatives. “Both Mujibal and Salim are absconding after the Patna blasts,” he added.
A joint team of the Ranchi police and the NIA in search of Hyder Ali, one of the six accused in the Patna serial blasts raided the lodge named Iram.
Ali, a native of Aurangabad, reportedly stayed in the room before the October 27 attack, the officer said.
Sources in the NIA said an arrest warrant was obtained from a Delhi court against Ali on October 25 in connection with the Bodhgaya blasts in which two Buddhist monks were injured. Twelve bombs were planted in Bodhgaya, the pilgrimage of the Buddhists, on July 7 this year. However, only 10 exploded and two live bombs were recovered.
The investigating officer said the persons assigned the task to plant the cylinder bombs were given separate codes. “This has been confirmed with the seizure of the documents from the lodge in Ranchi,” he added.
About the motive of the IM operatives behind the recent attacks, the officer said the CDs and the DVDs showing the riots of different places in the country and outside, were enough evidence to explain the reasons. “One can easily guess about the motive after watching the CDs and the DVDs, which were found from the Ranchi lodge,” he said.
The officer, however, expressed his displeasure over the disclosure of the details of the documents recovered during the search operation. “The revelations by the Ranchi police have made the job of the NIA more difficult. The important operatives — Tahseen and Waqas — who are believed to have conspired the two serial explosions in Bihar, are still at large,” he said.
Investigations in the Patna serial blasts have revealed that the IM has changed its strategy so far as the use of explosives is concerned. “They are now using high-intensity gelatin-based pipe bombs and flame-based elbow bombs, which are relatively weak,” the officer said.
He pointed out that it was a departure from the boat-shaped bombs and the pressure cooker bombs, which were earlier used in the attacks in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Pune.
The boat-shaped bombs first originated from Bhatkal in Karnataka, while the pressure cooker bombs were used by the Azamgarh module.
The NIA has detained a youth hailing from Ramgarh in Jharkhand for questioning in connection with the Patna serial blasts. “We are also on the look out for a Bokaro college girl, who supposedly had financed the group involved in the Patna blasts,” the investigating officer said. The girl is said to be close to Tahsin and had even visited Patna earlier.
Ansari remand
Patna serial blast accused Imtiyaz Ansari alias Alam was produced in the civil court on Thursday. Judicial magistrate Gopal Krishna remanded Ansari to judicial custody till November 12.