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Anti-Terrorism Squad suspect terror links in the blast near Dagaduseth Ganapati Temple

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Pune BJP, Shiv Sena and RPI unit protested at the blast site near Dagadusheth Halwai Ganpati Temple against State Govt for not installing CCTV in the city on Friday
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Pune: A day after the low intensity blast near Dagaduseth Ganapati Temple in Pune, the state Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) officials suspect that the blast might be a terror attack and they also claim that they have CCTV footage of two men parking a bike in Faraskhana police station parking lot — the location of the blast. ATS officials also suspect a revenge theory cropping from Hadapsar riots where a youth, Mohsin Shaikh, was allegedly murdered by a member of Hindu Rashtra Sena.

On Friday evening, the Pune city commissioner Satish Mathur inspected the temple premises and the CCTV footage and visited the blast site. In order to recover parts of the damaged bike, where the bomb was planted, police cordoned off the area.
Speaking to dna, Mathur said,

"After the blast, I directed all the police stations in-charge to take effective steps and security measures."


An ATS officer said, "Five people have been injured and the damaged to property is worth Rs1.50 lakh. Prima facie the blast seems to be a part of a terrorist attack."The officer added, "Ten investigation teams have been formed for a speedy probe. Evidence has been collected from the spot and sent for forensic analysis. Reports are awaited."



Bike was driven from Satara to blast site
A senior police officer said, "We have clues that bike was brought from Satara to Pune and had reached two days prior to blast. The team is scrutinizing CCTV footages. When the forensic team inspected the bike, it had one litre petrol in the tank."
He added, "The bike is a 2002 model which operates on kick start having a battery capacity of 12 watts. We suspect the explosive was made of liquid materials, ammonium nitrate, pistol shell, which has gun power in it, ball bearings and a detonator with a digital-timer clock. For more impact and noise, the suspect had kept two additional batteries of nine watts each and placed it in the bike and joined the wires with the 12 watts of battery in the bike, below the seat cover. There are few shops in the city where such batteries are available and the team is interrogating them. Joining batteries to the explosive can be done in a garage."

Police acquired CCTV footage
According to the officials, some CCTVs installed in surrounding areas have managed to capture the images of the culprit. The officials said, "The police stations cameras are not high resolution and do not have enough recording capacity. There are blurred images in which two youths travelling on the same bike which contained the bomb. One stayed outside while the other youth wearing formal clothes parked the bike in police station premises at around 11am. Then one of them went in the direction of Shivajinagar while the other went to camp. We have also collected CCTV grabs from Pune railway station, the bus stand near station and also from the Shivajinagar bus stand premises."

Various agencies probing different theories

1. On Thursday, May 1, 2014, there were two low-intensity blasts at Chennai Central Railway station. The bomb was kept in a suitcase and placed in train from Bangalore and the blast took place four hours after it reached Chennai.

2. Last month in Pune, the members of Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS) allegedly murdered Mohsin Shaikh, an IT graduate, who was bludgeoned to death after morphed pictures of Bal Thackeray and Chhatrapati Shivaji went viral on social networking sites causing riots

3. On April 16, 2014, during the Karnataka Assembly elections, a bomb exploded near the ruling BJP's office in Bangalore resulting in injuries to 16 policemen and damaging six police vehicles

4. After the arrest of Asadalluh Akhtar by New Delhi special cell, the NIA had intercepted the chats between him and a Pakistani terrorist Mirza Shadab Baig on July 18, 2013, in which they had mentioned the plan to attack police. On of such dialogues was, "Ab Waha ke Mamu logon ki bari hai, Yaar Bada Nuksan ho bas." (Now it's police's turn and the damage should be severe)

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