Chargesheet filed in Modi's Patna rally blasts case

Patna, Bihar: The National Investigation Agency filed a charge sheet against 10 people, including alleged activist of banned SIMI group Hyder Ali, in a court in Patna, in the case relating to the serial blasts at the then BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's rally in Patna last year.

NIA, which filed the charge sheet in a special court, alleged that Ali, who was SIMI in-charge of Jharkhand, had allegedly conspired with others to target Modi.

According to the charge sheet, the accused wanted to target Modi as they thought that it would be inimical to their interests if he became the Prime Minister, and in pursuance of this conspiracy, Ali and his associates had conducted reconnaissance of various rallies to take stock of the security arrangements and plan for attacks.

"After realising that it was not possible to reach Modi during such rallies due to stringent security arrangements, the accused Ali and other co-conspirators decided to trigger bomb blasts at one such public rally which would result in a stampede and in the ensuing melee and chaos, they could reach to Modi," the charge sheet said.

Giving details of the alleged conspiracy, NIA said the accused had collected explosives from Mirzapur and other material from Patna to fabricate improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Ali, who allegedly also planted bombs at Bodh Gaya last year, had given up the idea of planting cylinder bombs as they were not that effective. After learning how to make bombs from "Inspire" magazine of banned terror group Al-Qaeda, they fabricated IEDs in pipe-elbow style, according to the charge sheet.

The charge sheet in the serial blasts case, in which six people were killed and 89 injured, also names Numan Ansari, Mujibullah Ansari, Umer Siddique, Azharuddin Quresh, Ahmad Hussain, Fakkruddin, Firoz Aslam, Iftheqar Alam and a juvenile.

According to the NIA, Ali and his associates were members of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and had been motivating and recruiting young boys from Ranchi and other places by showing them Jehadi videos.

This is the second charge sheet filed by NIA in this case.

NIA had filed the first charge sheet in April this year against Imtiyaz Ansari, who was caught by people when they were attempting to detonate a bomb inside a makeshift toilet in Patna.