The CBI has taken custody of four persons allegedly involved in the 1993 Bombay serial blasts, after they were apprehended held by Gujarat's Anti- Terrorist Squad on May 12 - nearly three decades after the March 12, 1993 terror outrage which left 257 died and over 700 others injured.
A source told IANS that a Mumbai court has given the probe agency seven days custody of the four, identified as Abu Bakar alias Abdul Gafoor, Syed Qureshi alias Rahat Jan Qureshi, Mohammad Shoaib Qureshi alias Shoaib Bawa, and Mohammad Yusuf Ismail alias Yusuf Bhatka for its investigation.
The source said that all the four accused were from Mumbai, but on their passports their addresses were shown as Mira Road (Maharashtra), two from Bengaluru, and one from Tamil Nadu.
The Gujarat ATS had been working on secret information, which they developed further. Acting a tip-off about the presence of four suspicious persons in Ahmedabad, a team was formed under Deputy Superintendent of Police, Kanubhai Patel, which detained the four persons from the Sardarnagar area on the evening of May 12.
Initially, the four accused were booked for carrying forged Indian passports.
The arrested persons had Indian passports with the following names -- Javed Basha alias Qasim Saab, Syed Abbas Sharif alias Syed Abbas, Syed Yasin alias Abdul Rahman, and Mohammad Yusuf Ismail alias Sheikh Ismail Noor Mohammad.
However, they were later identified as Abu Bakar (Basha), Syed Qureshi (Abbas Sharif), Shoaib Qureshi (Syed Yasin), and Yusuf Ismail (Yusuf Ismail).
Additional Director General of Police, Gujarat ATS, Amit Vishwakarma had said on May 12 that all the four accused were booked under Passport Act, as they were accused of obtaining passports on the basis of forged documents and fake information, so as to flee the country. The Gujrat ATS had duly informed the CBI regarding their arrest and had shared all its information, adding that they would be handed over to the agency after their remand ends.
The central agency will record their statement and will confront them with documents it has.