Mumbai, Sept. 8: Seven months after a bomb ripped through the popular German Bakery, the Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad says it has finally cracked the case.
The major breakthrough came in the form of the arrest of the Maharashtra chief of the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, who is accused of being the kingpin in the Pune blast. Another accused was arrested from Nashik while two others are still at large.
On February 13 this year a bomb went off at the bakery in Pune’s upmarket Koregaon Park area at 6.15 pm, killing 17 and injuring 56. “On Tuesday, at 3.15 pm, we arrested Mirza Himayat Baig, 29, from the Mahatma Gandhi bus stand in Pune. Baig had been on the run since the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case. He was a member of the Faiyaz Kagzi and Zaibuddin Ansari modules that were involved in the Aurangabad case,” said the ATS chief, Mr Rakesh Maria.
Baig, who holds a diploma in education and worked in a library in Pune, met Indian Mujahideen operative Akbar Chaudhary who introduced him to Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal, the co-founders of the Indian Mujahideen (IM).