Maria will lead probe into recent blasts

MUMBAI: Police commissioner Ranjit Sharma has formed a core group under newly-appointed additional commissioner of police Rakesh Maria to try and solve the recent bomb blasts in the city.
Mr Maria, who was the railway police commissioner until recently, took charge of his new assignment on Wednesday. Mr Sharma said the 32-member core group had been set up with the sole purpose of tracking down the culprits behind the Vile Parle blast of January 28 and the explosion in a local train at Mulund on March 13.
The police have already arrested four people in connection with the December 2 blast at Ghatkopar. No arrests have been made in the other two cases although the police have drawn a tentative sketch of a suspect in the Mulund blast.
“We have sent teams to Delhi, Gujarat and Hyderabad in search of suspects,’’ Mr Sharma said, adding that the wanted people were suspected of belonging to the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi). Mr Sharma said the fact that blasts continued to rock the city despite the arrests in the Ghatkopar case suggested that “other people’’ were active in the city.
Although the police have had two men— Imran Rehman and Mohammed Altaf—deported from Dubai on suspicion of being linked to the blasts, they have reportedly not made much headway despite questioning them. Mr Sharma also announced a 56-member quick response team comprising police personnel directly trained under the National Security Guards.