Andhra Pradesh police officials including members of elite anti terrorist force OCTOPUS will soon go to Mumbai to question Sadhvi Pragya Singh, Shrikant Purohit and other suspects who were arrested in connection with the Malegaon blast.
A top state police officer told the rediff.com that the team will question the sadhvi and others about the bomb blast at Mecca Masjid on May 18 last year in which five people were killed. The arrests of Hindu militant elements by Maharashtra's Anti Terrorist Squad has become significant because a similarity was found between the explosives used in the Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blasts.
The sources said that a team of the AP police force had already visited Mumbai but they could not get access to Sadhvi and her associates ,as the Mumbai ATS was questioning them about the incidents in Maharashtra. "Once they complete their job, we will go back to Mumbai and question them", said the officer on a condition of anonymity.
The Mecca Masjid blast, which remains an unsolved mystery for the Andhra police, was very much on the radar of the Mumbai police during their interrogation of the sadhvi and others, sources said.
"The sadhvi has infact denied her link with the Mecca Masjid blast, but our gut feeling is that other members of this module or some other module of the same elements could be involved in the Mecca Masjid blast," police sources said.
Police sources said that as many as ten more members of the sadhvi's module are at large and only after they were arrested would a clear picture emerge. "Till now we were thinking that any Hindu militant group can not carry out a terror attack like the blast in Mecca Masjid but the busting of the Sadhvi gang and involvement of some present and past army officials has opened up the possibility of their involvement. We have started looking afresh at the incident," a senior official said.
The police officials are also considering the view that Muslims did not carry out the blast at the Mecca Masjid.
