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RDX used in Pune blast, say cops

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Press Trust of India Pune
Last Updated : Jan 21 2013 | 1:47 AM IST

Pune police today said they have got "vital" information on Saturday's blast from the CCTV footages even as two persons with suspected links with Indian Mujahideen were detained in connection with the attack.

Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh said they have got the forensic report and it has established that RDX and ammonium nitrate were used in the attack at the German Bakery, a popular eatery here.

"We have the CCTV footages. We have got some vital information from it," Singh told reporters here.

"We received the forensic report last night. It has been established that the presence of RDX, ammonium nitrate and petroleum hydrocarbon oil in it," the Commissioner said.

The explosives were hidden inside a bag which was lying under a table in the cafe. It exploded when a waiter tried to open it.

Singh said 24-year-old Abhishek Saxena from Lucknow succumbed to his injuries last night, taking the toll to 10.

Police sources the two suspects were picked up from Janwadi area in Pune and Kudalwadi in the neighbouring industrial township of Pimpri.

One of the suspects who was nabbed from Kudalwadi area is believed to have been associated with Indian Mujahideen leader Riyaz Bhatkal during his stay here, they said.

However, Singh said he can "neither confirm nor deny" on being asked whether any arrests have been made in connection with the attack.

The Centre has not ruled out foreign involvement including a Headley link while some Indian Mujahideen (IM) operatives at large came under the scanner of security agencies.

LeT operative and Pakistani-origin American David Coleman Headley, lodged in a Chicago jail in the US for his alleged involvement in the 26/11 attacks, had surveyed the area near the blast site during his trips to Pune last year.

The police commissioner said he had no information as yet on the device used to trigger the blast.

"I don't know. We have not yet established that," Singh said when asked whether the blast was triggered using a remote-controlled device.

Sources privy to the investigations said information was being gathered about Mohsin Chaudhury, a Pune resident with links to IM and who is missing, while trying to ascertain the role of Pakistan-based terror group Lashker-e-Taiba(LeT) which has close links with the Indian outfit.

With IM's hand in the bomb blast being increasingly suspected, Maharashtra's Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) was planning to question a few jailed IM men to get some leads.

Among those likely to be questioned were Saddiq Sheikh, believed to be one of the founders of IM, and Mansoor Peerbhoy. The IM is stated to be an amalgam of former SIMI cadres and LeT operatives.

Another IM militant Shahzad arrested in connection with 2008 serial blasts in Delhi will also be questioned over the presence of the terror group's sleeper cells in Maharashtra, especially in Pune.

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First Published: Feb 16 2010 | 11:19 AM IST

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