Hyderabad blasts: Two local groups under the scanner

While probing the twin blasts which killed 16 people in Hyderabad on Thursday, the special team constituted by the city police is looking into the possible role played by some local groups.

An officer in the Special Investigation Team told rediff.com that though no one has been arrested yet, some members of two local outfits are being questioned.

“We suspect that some members of the two local groups sheltered the terrorists, sourced the material for the bomb and stocked it,” said the official.

The outfits that are under the scanner are the Darsgah-e-Jihad-O-Shahadat and the Tehreek Tahffuz-e-Shuaer-e-Islam.

These two groups are prominent in the area of Malakapet, close to the blast site Dilsukhnagar.

“The material for the bomb was sourced locally. We have to find out if members of this group helped stock the material and shelter anybody involved with the blast,” said the official.

The ‘foot soldiers’, terrorists who carried out the blast, are believed to be outsiders who coordinated with the local module.

The special team has not made any arrests so far but has questioned over 40 people from Malakapet, Saidabad and Moosrambagh areas in Hyderabad.

“We have got some leads about the association of (Hyderabad blast suspect) Syed Maqbool with some members of the DJS and the TTSI,” said the official.

Maqbool, who had been arrested in connection with the Pune blasts, is accused of helping the Indian Mujahideen conduct a survey of Dilsukhnagar.

According to the Hyderabad police, the DJS has been found to be involved in some subversive activities in the past. The outfit, founded by Shaikh Mahboob in 2001, is now headed by his son-in-law Abdul Majid.

Livid at the allegations leveled against his outfit, Majid claimed that the DJS has trained 50,000 youth in self defence, but is was not involved in any kind of terror activity.

The Hyderabad police believe that Maqbool and Mohammad Viqar, who was arrested in 2010 for the murder of two policemen, were once associated with the DJS.

Police officials clarify that they are not making any accusations against these outfits but merely probing the alleged links of some of its members to the Indian Mujahideen.