M A I N   N E W S

Five arrested for Mumbai blasts
100 SIMI men being questioned
S. Iyer

Mumbai, August 31
Nearly a week after two car bombs killed 52 persons here, the police claims to have arrested the people who planted the explosives.

Quoting police investigators, Maharashtra’s Minister of State for Home Kripashankar Singh told reporters here this morning that five persons who transported the explosives had been arrested from different parts of the country.

Another 100 suspected activists of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India are being investigated for their role in terror activities, the police says.

The arrested persons include two women who posed as passengers along with their male colleagues and travelled in the two taxis in which the bombs were planted.

The arrests were made on the basis of information available from the driver of one of the taxis in which the bombs were planted.

Shivnarayan Pandey, driver of cab that exploded at the Gateway, escaped unhurt and helped prepare the sketch of the bombers, the police said. The other taxi driver who drove the vehicle to Zaveri Bazar died in the blast, according to police.

While some of the arrests were made here the rest of the suspects were picked up from different parts of the country, according to the minister.

The two car bomb explosions had claimed the lives of 52 persons and injured more than 200. The blasts happened despite warnings issued by the intelligence agencies of possible terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Monday’s blasts were far more powerful than the series of earlier blasts that have rocked Mumbai since December last.

The first of the blasts had occurred in a bus outside the Ghatkopar suburban train station on December 2, last year killing two persons. Four days later, a blast at the Mumbai Central station injured 25 persons.

One person was killed and 25 were injured in a blast near the Vile Parle train station on January 28.

On March 19, a blast ripped through a commuter train plying between the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Karjat station, killing 12 persons.

The sixth blast occurred in a bus in the Ghatkopar on July 28.

The worst bombing in Mumbai had happened on March 12, 1993 when 13 blasts rocked the city. About 250 persons were killed and more than 800 injured in the blasts in the wake of the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya and riots in several parts of India, including Mumbai.