Is SIMI's MP module behind Pune blast?

NIA sleuths suspect this SIMI module carried out the October 2013 jail break in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, in which 10 SIMI members escaped. Vicky Nanjappa/Rediff.com reports.

A team of National Investigating Agency sleuths is looking at a possible link between last week's blasts near Pune's Dagdusheth temple -- in which five people were injured -- and the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.

NIA sources suspect a gang of SIMI members from Madhya Pradesh could be behind the Pune blast. They suspect that this SIMI module was also behind the Khandwa jail break in October 2013 in which 10 SIMI members escaped.

An NIA team visited Madhya Pradesh to question Abu Faisal, the leader of the SIMI module who is in prison, and others.

"It is routine questioning based on suspicion," an NIA official said, on condition that he would not be identified in this report.

"However, we are not ruling out the possibility of this module being behind the (Pune) attack," he added.

While five members of this SIMI module who escaped from the Khandwa jail and were rearrested are being questioned, the NIA is on the lookout for five of their associates who went missing after the jail break.

This SIMI module is closely associated with Abdus Subhan, who once edited a magazine SIMI published.

The module had planned on breaking into a jail in Gujarat to free their leader Safdar Nagori.

When members of this group were produced in court, they raised anti-Narendra Modi slogans and voiced their support for the Taliban.

Image: Forensics experts inspect the site of last week's blast near Pune's Dagdusheth temple. Photograph: PTI