Detained: ‘SIMI man who gave logistical help’

The Special Operations Group of Jaipur Police on Saturday detained a state-based operative of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), who is suspected of being linked to the perpetrators of Tuesday’s serial blasts in Jaipur.

Mohammed Sajjid, 40, a part-time madarsa teacher, is suspected to have provided logistical help to a 24-member module of the Harkat-Ul-Jehad-Islami (HUJI), which is under the police scanner for allegedly executing the blasts.

A senior investigator said that the probe team believes Sajjid and a few other SIMI operatives help the HUJI module procure explosives, survey the targeted spots and make arrangements for their lodging in the city. Sajjid is currently under interrogation and is apparently a “hard nut” to crack. Officers did not rule out the possibility of putting him through a narco-analysis test.

A senior investigator said Sajjid is a former state SIMI office bearer who has been active of late and has deliberately maintained links with the outfit’s top leadership which was arrested on March 27 in Indore by the Madhya Pradesh police.
Sajjid is from the Ganganagar district and has been under scrutiny of the local police.

“Ganganagar is the hub of SIMI activities and Sajjid, we suspect, could be linked to the Jaipur blasts,” said an investigator.

The Jaipur police has launched a low-key exercise to check on the activities of over 100 SIMI activists in the state, including 45 of them in Jaipur. The police are also keeping an eye on certain areas in Jaipur, which have a large concentration of Bangladeshi migrants.

The police said that ammonium-nitrate and one of its variants, neogel, was probably sourced from Andhra Pradesh, and the commercial detonators — two in each bomb — are also manufactured by an Andhra Pradesh manufacturer.

Investigators are now saying a forensic team sent by the National Security Guards has established that there was no RDX in the explosives.