Cops zero in on unclaimed body

MUMBAI: The unclaimed body at Sion Hospital in central Mumbai is now in the focus of the Maharashtra Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS), which is ascertaining if the person killed was one of the perpetrators of the serial blasts as has been claimed in one of the e-mails received by a TV channel.

ATS chief KP Raghuvanshi said a DNA profiling has been done of the deceased and experts have been asked to prepare a sketch of the dead whose only upper torso and a mutilated face are intact.

The person is suspected to have died in one of the blasts either at Mahim or Matunga railway station on the fateful day of July 11 when the blasts went off at seven places killing more than 200 people, he said. An e-mail received by a TV channel has claimed that all the executors of the blasts escaped safely, except one who was killed in the blasts.

Mr Raghuvanshi said veracity of this claim in the e-mail can be ascertained only when the unclaimed body is identified. He said two persons, who were searching for their missing relatives, had visited the mortuary in the past few days to have a look at the deceased but they returned saying that the body was not of their kin.

“One of them told the people (at mortuary) that he would return with his uncle living in Madhya Pradesh to identity the body again,” Mr Raghuvanshi said. Meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh police arrested a teenager from Bhopal for sending a prank mail to a local daily by claiming to be the MP chief of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and owning responsibility for the Mumbai blasts.

The ATS chief said the boy had claimed he had sent the e-mail as a prank and to gain publicity. A top Madhya Pradesh police official said that in all the three e-mails claiming responsibility of the blasts have been received.

Asked if the possibility of involvement of terrorist group Lashkar-e-Qahhar into the blasts has diminished following the arrest of the teenager, Mr Raghuvanshi said, ”all we can say is that the boy is not related to Qahhar and had sent the mail to gain cheap publicity”.

“I cannot comment on the claims made in the (remaining) e-mails until the unclaimed body is identified,” he said. The ATS chief said the probe was now going in a ‘definite direction’ and teams have been sent to several places in connection with the probe. “I will reveal the status of the probe at an appropriate time,” he added.

An ATS team visiting Agartala, meanwhile, interrogated the 11 Thane residents who were detained on suspicion in Dhalai district of Tripura bordering Bangladesh recently. According to Mr Raghuvanshi, certain issues need to be clarified and the team was seeking a clarification from those detained on these issues.

He said a formal report of the analysis of the explosive samples sent for forensic examination at FSL Mumbai has arrived. The report says cyclonite (RDX), nitride and petroleum hydrocarbon oil was present in the samples, he said.