Maha ATS...

ATS officials conducted a house search where, they said, they seized eight crude bombs. The team then raided Raut’s shop located in the same locality and seized 12 more crude bombs, two gelatine sticks, four electronic detonators, 22 non-electronic detonators, 150 gm of an unidentified white powder wrapped in a newspaper, two bottles with ‘poison’ written on them, a box with 10 batteries, one 6-volt battery, a soldering machine, a cutter, three switches, three printed circuit boards, six battery connectors, two battery containers, three relay switches, eight resistant switches, six transistors, some wires, hand gloves, sticky solutions and a hand-drawn electronic circuit on a piece of paper.

Soon after Raut’s arrest, an associate right-wing Hindu outfit, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, issued a media release stating Raut was a Gaurakshak (a cow protector), and that he was a Sanathan Sanstha seer.

The release stated that he used to participate in the organisa- tion’s programmes and agitations by uniting Hindu organisations under the aegis of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. It also said Raut had not participated in any of its events for the last few months.

Simultaneously, another ATS team arrested two persons named Sharad Kalaskar and Sudhanva Gondhalekar from Pune.

Two police officers said on condition of anonymity that all three were arrested on the basis of intelligence inputs provided by the Karnataka Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the September 2017 murder of Bengaluru journalist Gauri Lankesh.

On May 31 this year, police sources said, SIT got a tip-off regarding these three persons during the interrogation of Amol Kale, a Pune-based engineer who is the main suspect in Lankesh’s killing. “Karnataka SIT shared information with Maharashtra ATS on 10 persons closely linked to Kale,” one of the police officers added. Hindustan Times was not able to confirm this independently. A member of the Karnataka SIT said he was not aware of any links between Raut and Lankesh’s killing but added that it was too early to comment.

The three accused were in regular touch with each other, ATS officials said on Friday. The accused were produced in the City Civil and Sessions court, where ATS officials sought the custody of all the three accused and stated that they needed to investigate their social media activity and call data record to find out whom they were in touch with.

“We also need to find out where they planned to plant these crude bombs, and who was masterminding the operation,” ATS officials said in court. The accused alleged that they had been tortured by police officials. The court has called for their medical reports. Minister of state for Home (Rural) Deepak Kesarkar said forensic reports of the seized material will establish further details about their plans.

“ATS has the authority for the independent investigation of the case. The police have sought the custody of the accused and the further investigation will help them in establishing the links. As of now we are not confirming their links with the Sanatan Santha. There have been many unconfirmed reports about the links of the accused and the material seized, but the air will be cleared only after primary investigation. The reports about the RDX seizure are also not true as the primary investigation has proved the seizure of crude bomb and raw material,” Kesarkar said.

When asked about possible links of the accused in the killing of Dabholkar and Pansare, the minister said that the investigating agency will explore those angles. “The investigating agency will check if they were involved in any other unresovled cases.”