Indian Mujahideen founding member Mohammed Sajjid, key suspect in Pune blasts: Sources

NEW DELHI: Security agencies probing the recent Pune serial blasts have claimed that Mohammed Sajjid, a founding member of banned Indian Mujahideen(IM), was the key suspect in the attack.

Official sources said today that a bicycle shop owner who was shown pictures of some suspects identified Sajjid alias 'Bada Sajjid' as the man who had purchased from him one of the cycles used in the explosions.

Low intensity bombs were strapped on to three bicycles and dustbins in five coordinated multiple explosions at J M Road in the heart of Pune on August one leaving one person injured.

The sources said the shopkeeper informed the investigators that the person who purchased a bicycle ahead of the explosions matched Sajjid's photograph.

The emergence of the role of Sajjid came as a surprise for security agencies as the information they last had about him was that he was in Pakistan after fleeing India following the Batla House encounter in Delhi in 2008.

Sajjid was part of the module led by Mohammad Atif Ameen, which was mostly eliminated in the Batla House encounter on September 19, 2008, but he along with Dr Shahnawaz, another IM member, had managed to escape from the flat in Jamia Nagar when the policemen reached there.

The duo had used the Nepal route to flee to Pakistan and information about Sajjid's presence in Pakistan was shared by other IM operatives arrested after the encounter by the security agencies.

The explosive material used by terrorists to trigger the serial bomb blasts in Pune was ammonium nitrate, which is often used by the home-grown terror outfit.

It was packed in a steel box in a combination of Neogel, generally used in stone quarries, and oil to act as binding material for the Improvised Explosive Device (IED). A wrist watch was attached to the device to act as a timer.