Two men held for Pune bakery bombing

Mumbai: In a major breakthrough, two men linked with the Indian Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were arrested for the German Bakery bombing that killed 17 people in Pune city last February, officials said yesterday.

One of the suspects was arrested in Nashik while the other was nabbed in Pune. Both were arrested on Tuesday.

The blast, in which 17 people were killed and more than 65 injured, took place on February 13, ripping through the German bakery, a haunt of foreigners and the rich, in Pune's trendy Koregaon Park area. Among the victims were an Italian woman, an Iranian and two Sudanese.

The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which cracked the case seven months after the blast, has sent a team to Udgir in Latur district to probe into the conspiracy angle.

"The prime suspect, Himayat Baig, was arrested from Pune at 3.15pm on Tuesday while Shaikh Lal Baba Mohammad Hussain Farid alias Bilal was nabbed from Nashik at 8.45pm," said ATS chief Rakesh Maria.

"We would not like to disclose right now as it is a part of our investigation, but Baig and Bilal were being controlled by someone from LeT in Pakistan," Maria said.

The ATS also seized close to two kilogrammes of RDX, LeT literature, bombmaking manuals, US and Indian currencies, mobile telephones and pen drives. "Photographs of the German Bakery site were also seized from them," Maria said.

The two were remanded into police custody by the Pune court. "Baig has been remanded in police custody till September 20, while we have got the custody of Bilal till September 14," Maria said.

Baig, 29, originally from Maharashtra's Beed town, was instrumental in creating a module of the LeT in Aurangabad and later merging it with the Indian Mujahideen.

Plot hatched

He shifted to Udgir a year-and-half ago and owned an internet café where the plan for the Pune blast was hatched.

"It was priority No. 1 of the ATS to detect and arrest the accused of this sensational case. After a whole lot of painstaking effort. The case took us to Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. We arrested Baig and Bilal yesterday," Maria said.

He described Baig as very important to the case and the one who created the entire module. "He was the one who planned the blasts, identified the spots, made the bombs and planted them," the ATS chief said.

Baig had come in contact with Akbar Chaudhary, who allegedly was a member of the Indian Mujahideen and was arrested by Mumbai Crime Branch in 2008.