Faiz Usmani’s wife Ruwaida and son wait for his body outside a Mumbai hospital on Sunday. He died after police picked him up for questioning in Wednesday’s blast. (PTI)

Patna, July 17: Bihar police have detained a man near the Bengal border and are verifying if a series of seemingly telltale clues have anything to do with the July 13 Mumbai blasts.

The suspect picked up in Bihar’s Kishanganj was apparently away around the time of the attack, his hands were burnt and he had a diary written in Marathi but the police had not arrived at any definite conclusion till late today.

The man has been identified as Riyazuddin Khan alias Akash Sheikh, 30. But the police were unable to establish his antecedents as he kept changing statements about his roots.

The interrogators say he has variously mentioned as his home state Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Bengal, which borders Kishanganj. Bihar police chief Neel Mani said the man was fluent in Kannada, Gujarati and Bengali.

The investigators are also trying to find out if Riyazuddin has links with Harkat-ul Jihadi Islami, an outfit based in Bangladesh which shares borders with Kishanganj.

Sources said Riyazuddin had returned to Kishanganj’s Maheshpur village on July 15 evening, 48 hours after the Mumbai blasts. He had been away from July 10 to July 14, the villagers told the police after the burn injuries on his palms and the diary aroused their suspicion.

Riyazuddin, staying in a rented house for the past one month after introducing himself to the villagers as a builder, was picked up around 8pm yesterday. Three cellphones with separate SIM cards were found on him. House-owner Mohammad Mehtab Alam was detained this evening.

“His identity is being verified. The officials of the Intelligence Bureau and other agencies are interrogating him,” Neel Mani said but added it was yet to be confirmed whether he had links with any terrorist outfit.

Amit Kumar, the DIG of Purnea range which covers Kishanganj, said Riyazuddin initially claimed he was a resident of Gujarat and said his father’s name was Male Khan.

Pressed further, he changed his earlier statement and claimed he was a resident of Barud in Madhya Pradesh. He also mentioned Karnataka and Bengal at different points in the interrogation. “We are verifying his identity. The mist will clear after a thorough interrogation,” the DIG said.

The sources said Riyazuddin was being quizzed at the Kishanganj police station and would be taken to Patna, 400km away.

The officers are also trying to determine whether Riyazuddin has links to fake currency rackets that use Kishanganj as a corridor, taking advantage of its strategic location in the “Chicken’s Neck” region close even to Nepal.

Bombs in Gujarat

A grocery shop worker was arrested in Ahmedabad today after eight crude bombs and explosives were found in his house with police claiming the devices were to be used during the July 3 rath yatra to trigger communal clashes.

Uttar Pradesh native Sahazad Ahmed, 27, was picked up on a tip-off from the woman he was living with after the couple had a quarrel. The woman told the police Sahazad used to visit Bangladesh.

The arrest comes just over a week before the third anniversary of the Ahmedabad blasts of July 26, 2008, that killed over 55 people.

City police chief Sudhir Sinha said: “Sahazad wanted to trigger communal clashes before the rath yatra but couldn’t because of heavy security.”