Hindustan Times ST (Jaipur)

Blast perpetrato­rs influenced by ISIS, says CM Chouhan

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and work in New Delhi.

She was reluctant. “I was scared of his anger. I asked him to join his brother in his dairy business. He left without telling me.”

The friends left Kanpur together.

Another friend found Saifullah, Atif and cousin Danish meeting quite often along the banks of the Ganga, close to his home in the Jajmau Teela locality, or a dhaba on the highway.

Atif dropped out of Aligarh Muslim University after his father’s death in 2013. He was doing a diploma. His father was chairman of the Muslim Associatio­n, a group that runs colleges and schools.

In the past two months, Atif tried calling his mother. But she didn’t speak. “I was angry with him. He told his sister he was moving to Mumbai where he has landed a job. That was the last time anyone of us heard from him,” she said.

Saifullah, too, told his brother he has taken up a job and he would earn “so much in this life” that the family would be proud.

Madhya Pradesh police arrested Atif and another two — cousin Danish and a friend from Aligarh — for their suspected role in train blast.

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Wednesday the Islamic State was behind the Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train blast near Jabri station, around 80km west of Bhopal.

Nine people were injured after a pipe bomb, filled with ammonium nitrate, went off at 9.41 am on the passenger train on Tuesday. The police have nabbed the three suspects — mastermind Atif Muzaffar and Md Danish, both residents of Kanpur, and Syed Meer Hussain — for the train blast.

Chouhan told newsmen here that the trio were planning to carry out a series of sabotages in Madhya Pradesh and other parts of the country and were planning to plant a bomb in an air-conditione­d coach of the train. They had learnt how to make pipe bomb from the internet.

He said one of the accused had clicked the pictures and sent photo to their handler in Syria, a IS stronghold.

Chouhan, however, ruled out that Madhya Pradesh was vulnerable to terror attacks.

PUNYA PRIYA MITRA

 ?? HT PHOTO ?? Sartaj Ahmed (L) said he was unhappy with son Saifullah for being a wayward.
HT PHOTO Sartaj Ahmed (L) said he was unhappy with son Saifullah for being a wayward.

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