Two Simi men confess triggering blasts at Central

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu CB-CID disclosed on Tuesday that at least two of the five Simi activists nabbed in Rourkela last week by Odisha and Telangana police, were involved in the 2014 May Day twin blasts on Bengaluru–Guwahati train at Chennai Central station, which killed a woman software professional.

Last week, police nabbed five persons – Amjad Khan, 26, Zakir Hussein, 33, and Sheik Mehboob, 26, Najma, and Mohamed Salik. Of the five, Zakir Hussain and Sheik Mehboob were involved in the Chennai Central blast, CB-CID sources said. Another Central station blast suspect Mohamed Aijajuddin was killed in an encounter in Telangana in April last year, a police officer said.

Sources in the CB-CID team which went to Rourkela after the arrest of the wanted SIMI activists and managed to interact with the wanted men said, “They confessed that they had planted two bombs in the train before it left Bengaluru station. It was not targeted for Chennai or Narendra Modi’s BJP rally in AP as reported at that time, but against people of Assam who traveled in large numbers on that train,” sources said.

Tension was brewing between Bodo militants and Muslims migrants in Assam after Muslims refused to boycott the elections as demanded by militants.

The two wanted Simi men were on the run after they escaped from Khandwa jail in Madhya Pradesh on October 1, 2013, with four others. The National Investigation Agency had announced a reward of Rs10 lakh last July for information on them. The two escaped from prison with four associates, Amjad Khan, Mohammed Aizajuddin, Mohammed Aslam and Abu Faisal.

While two, Aizajuddin and Aslam - were killed in a police encounter at a check-post in Telangana’s Nalgonda district in April, Abu Faisal, the leader of the group, was nabbed by police in December 2013 in Madhya Pradesh itself.