'Bangkok bombing suspect was at Delhi airport for few hours'

NEW DELHI: The Chinese national, suspected to be responsible for last month's bombing outside a temple in Thailand's capital Bangkok, was in Delhi for few hours on transit from Dhaka to Abu Dhabi last month.

The accused Abudusataer Abudureheman alias Ishan, who is alleged to have organised the bombing outside Brahma temple in which killed 20 people, had taken a flight on August 30 from Dhaka to Abu Dhabi, official sources said.

He had to change flight at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport where he was in transit for a few hours, the sources said.

The transit passenegers are not supposed to undergo any immigration check and, moreover, there was no alert about the accused either through Interpol or Thailand authorities, the sources said, explaining why he could not be apprehended.

The 27-year-old accused from China's Xinjiang province took the flight from here and left for Abu Dhabi on August 30, the sources said, adding from there he travelled to Istanbul on the next day.

The sources said once the information was shared in the second week of this month, central security agencies carried out a random check of flight manifest and also searched the CCTV footage of that day.

Thai police had also sought help from Bangladesh through Interpol to help locate the mastermind behind the country's deadliest bombing after investigations indicated that the Chinese man might have fled there.

The Bangkok police had come to know about the departure of accused to Dhaka after testimony from witnesses.

The accused left Thailand via Suvarnabhumi International Airport on August 16, a day before the bombing, to China and then headed to Bangladesh.

Bangkok police was also tracing money channelled from foreign countries to see whether it was used in funding the attacks.