NIA team pays visit to Malegaon

MUMBAI: A five-member team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which took over the investigation of the 2006 and 2008 Malegaon bomb blasts, on Monday visited the Muslim cemetery in the textile town for the first time.
In April, both the bomb blast cases were handed over to the NIA which is already probing the role of saffron groups in various blasts. The NIA team first did a survey of the cemetery and spoke to the imam of the Hameediya mosque, Maulana Abdul Bari. This case pertains to the September 8, 2006 blast in Malegaon when four RDX bombs had killed 31 people. The police had arrested nine Muslim boys alleging they were behind the blasts. After agitation by local residents, the case was handed over to the CBI which could not make any breakthrough. In the second case of September 29, 2008 an RDX bomb went off in Bhikku Chowk area killing six people. Twelve persons belonging to Abhinav Bharat and Jai Vande Mataram were arrested for this blast. This case was initially investigated by the anti-terrorism squad (ATS). The Central government has handed over the blast cases of the Hyderabad Mecca Masjid, Ajmer dargah and Samjhauta Express to the CBI.
"The government's purpose is to find out the role of saffron groups in various blasts. All the cases where the role of right-wing people have been suspected, it is being probed by the NIA," said a police source.