Purohit to be probed for any role in other blasts too, says ATS

The Mumbai police will be probing if Lieutenant Colonel Srikant Prasad Purohit and others arrested in connection with the Malegaon blasts had any role in the explosions in other parts of the country this year even as the hunt for two absconding accused intensified.
     
The Mumbai police's plans for future investigations was communicated to the Nashik court after it granted the Anti-Terrorism Squad custody of Purohit for ten days.
     
Officials attached with the interrogation said the initial questioning of Purohit indicated that he had developed contacts with radical elements when he was posted in the Army Liaison Cell Unit, of Military Intelligence, in 2005-06.
     
In a related development, a hunt for Ramnarayan Kalsangram and Samir Dange, who are alleged to have planned and executed the Malegaon blasts, in which five people were killed and dozen others injured, has been intensified, official sources said.
     
Officials said the two were suspected to have planted the motorcycle-laden explosives in Malegaon on September 29.
     
The ATS has arrested nine persons for allegedly being involved in the September 29 blasts in Malegaon--Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, Shivnarayan Kalsangra, Shyam Sahu, retired army major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar, Rakesh Dhawde, Jagdish Mhatre and Srikant Purohit.

"Purohit was present in the meetings conducted in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh prior to the blasts and had financially assisted Rahirkar, a senior functionary of Hindu radical group Abhinav Bharat," the police informed the court.
    
His custody was also required to find out if he had provided any financial assistance to the arrested and the wanted accused and whether the money was used by them in the blasts.
    
Besides this, the source from where the explosives and seized revolvers were obtained by the accused also needs to be ascertained as also who gave them training to assemble the bombs used in the blasts.
    
Purohit will be subjected to brain-mapping, polygraph and narco-analysis tests.
    
He is suspected to have leaked details of the probe into the Malegaon blasts by the ATS to the other accused.
    
Purohit was allegedly in touch with Upadhyay, who was in contact with Kulkarni, and used to alert the accused about details of the probe into the blast, the remand application states.