NIA may reopen Bodh Gaya, Patna serial bomb blast cases

PATNA: The NIA may reopen the Patna’s Gandhi Maidan and Bodh Gaya serial blast cases following the arrest of Azharuddin alias Chemical Ali from Hyderabad on Friday. He had allegedly given shelter to the accused involved in the Bodh Gaya and later Gandhi Maidan blast cases in 2013.

A senior IPS officer, who had served the NIA earlier, said Azharuddin might have provided logistics to the bombers involved in both the cases.

“His interrogation will make things clearer,” he said. Trial in Gandhi Maidan blast case is still on while five involved in Bodh Gaya case were serving life imprisonment awarded on June 1, 2018.

Chemical Ali was among 18 named accused in an FIR lodged with Civil Lines police station at Raipur in Chhattisgarh in 2013. The FIR was lodged by police after a SIMI module, whose members were involved in Bodh Gaya and Patna serial blast cases, was busted by the NIA, which had investigated both the cases.

While ten time bombs had exploded in and outside the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya on July 7, 2013, Gandhi Maidan serial blasts took place on October 27 that year during Hunkar Rally of then Gujarat CM and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

Out of 17 arrested in the Civil Lines case, Umer Siddiqui and Azharuddin Qureshi were later convicted in Bodh Gaya case. Altogether 11 SIMI hardliners were involved in Gandhi Maidan case. They included the six accused, including a juvenile, involved in Bodh Gaya case.

Raipur SSP Sheikh Arif Hussain told TOI over phone that Azharuddin alias Chemical Ali had given shelter to bombers of both blast cases in Bihar. “We have taken him on two days’ remand for interrogation. NIA and Intelligence Bureau (IB) sleuths were also interrogating him,” he said.

When asked, special public prosecutor (NIA court, Patna) Lallan Prasad Sinha said all the six accused in Bodh Gaya case were convicted and the case was closed.