New Delhi/Mumbai: A retired Army officer and another person have been arrested in connection with the blasts in Malegaon town of Maharashtra last month.
Major (retd.) Ramesh Upadhyay, a resident of Pune, is working president of an organisation called Abhinav Bharat. Sameer Kulkarni, a member of the same group, is from Indore in Madhya Pradesh.
The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Mumbai police will produce the two men before a Nashik court on Wednesday. Upadhyay and Kulkarni are suspected to have trained the people who planted low-intensity bombs in Malegaon on the night of September 29.
PTI reports that Kulkarni is a former member of the BJP's student front Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
Pragya Singh Thakur, a Hindu woman ascetic and also a former member of the ABVP, has been the most sensational arrest in connection with the blasts till now. At least two other persons were arrested along with Thakur on October 24.
Abhinav Bharat is an obscure organisation and it claims to be "training" Hindus on how to fight terrorists. It was formed in 2006 and on in its website claims it aims to combat terrorism and rebuilding the nation around Hindu culture.
CNN-IBN Correspondent Niranjan Takle reports the ATS will request the Nashik court to give it custody of the two men for at least 40 days as it wants to question them regarding its suspicion they know explosives were procured and how the blasts were organised.
P B Kulkarni, a former Territorial Officer, on Tuesday denied that the ATS had contacted him. Media reports had speculated that ATS had questioned Kulkarni regarding the blasts.
"I have no contact with them and do not agree to the methods used in Malegaon. I am completely away from this. The police and the Government did not contact me. We are neither right nor left wing, but we are nationalist," Kulkarni told CNN-IBN.
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