Mumbai doc arrested; 20 more detained for blasts

 

MUMBAI: The Anti-Terrorism Squad of the Maharashtra Police has arrested a doctor in connection with the July 11 serial train blasts, taking the total arrests in the case to four, even as ATS-Crime Branch joint teams have detained over 20 more persons on suspicion of their involvement in the blasts, ATS sources said.
 
Dr Parveen Ansari, an unani practitioner from central Mumbai, who was being grilled by the Crime Branch for five days, was transferred to the ATS on Sunday night and has since then been placed under arrest, the sources said.

 

He has been charged with conspiracy and will be produced before a local court by Monday afternoon, they said.

 

Ansari is the fourth person to be arrested besides Kamal Ansari, Khalid Sheikh and Mumtaz Choudhary, who were arrested on Thursday evening.

 

Ansari had undergone training in weapons handling and explosives in Pakistan and is suspected to be the prime motivator to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba cadre in executing the serial train blasts, the sources said.
 
A post-graduate in unani medicine from Nagpur, Ansari has been practicing it in central Mumbai and was popular in the locality. ATS suspects that he sent several youths from central Mumbai and the suburbs to Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir to undergo LeT training.
 
Sources said that four more persons were also being interrogated -- Faizal, Muzzamil, Firoz Bangali and Sohail. Of them, Muzzamil is a software engineer, while Faizal is his cousin, and both have been detained from a southern Indian city.

 

Sohail has been detained from Pune, they added.