NIA set to take over Hyderabad blasts case probe: Report

Zeenews Bureau

New Delhi: National Investigation Agency (NIA) is expected to take over the probe in last week’s serial blasts in Hyderabad in which over a dozen people died and several others were injured. It was reported on Tuesday that senior NIA officials yesterday briefed the Home Ministry on the leads obtained so far into the Hyderabad blasts and requested it to transfer the case to the apex probe agency. A senior MHA official was also quoted as saying that the Hyderabad blast case could be transferred through a notification in the next few days to NIA. The Hyderabad police is likely to assist the NIA in its investigations. The NIA team, which was rushed to the spot on the night of the blasts, has been probing the matter only in conjunction with the Hyderabad police. The local Hyderabad police has set up 15 Special Investigation Teams under an additional commissioner for the case. Despite claiming to have obtained vital leads in the case, the local investigators have failed to achieve any breakthrough in the case yet. The investigators have grilled the LeT and IM terrorists lodged in jails in Bangalore and Delhi but they have not revealed major leads that could help in taking the investigation forward. Meanwhile, the CCTV images of bicycle-borne suspects captured by a CCTV at Dilsukh Nagar are extremely grainy and faces of the suspects are not identifiable. If sources are to be believed, IM along with LeT support is the prime suspect in the Hyderabad blasts which seem to have a connection with the blasts in Pune last August. NIA has already been asked to conduct raids in various parts of the country to nab IM operations chief in India, Yasin Bhatkal, and his three key associates Asadullah Akhtar, alias Tabrez, from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, Tahseen Shaikh from Samastipur in Bihar and Waqas. All four men have a reward of 10 lakh on their head declared by the Maharashtra Police for their involvement in the Pune blasts as well as the serial blasts in Mumbai on September 13, 2011. With Agency inputs