NEW DELHI: Delhi Police's Special Cell is conducting raids in Bareilly and other areas in Uttar Pradesh in pursuit of the suspects who planted an improvised explosive device at the Ghazipur flower market in east Delhi on January 14.
The suspects had allegedly rented a flat in Old Seemapuri and kept their second IED there, but the cops traced their location last Thursday and foiled their plans.
The raiding sleuths are armed with sketches of the suspects and the footage from the CCTV cameras that caught them astride a bike. UP's Anti-Terror Squad also visited the crime scene and the Seemapuri locality last Friday.
The raids were conducted after several leads suggested the accused had a UP connection. “While the Seemapuri house from where the second IED was recovered is barely 50 metres from the UP border, the Ghazipur spot is not more than 500 metres away," pointed out an intelligence source on Monday.
The cops suspect it might have been a strategic decision by the terrorists to have a UP base. "In case the IED had exploded, police would have sealed the borders, but a spot close to the border would have got the terrorists across in 2-3 minutes, even before the blockade was put in place," the source confided.
Police also learnt that the suspects had told the property dealer who got them the Old Seemapuri flat that they had come to Delhi from a village near Bareilly for higher studies and employment. Police learnt the men seemed well acquainted with rural UP villages and their dialect and accent also suggested this.
The suspects went underground immediately after planting the first bomb at Ghazipur, but the Special Cell traced the Seemapuri flat and an abandoned bike used by the men three days before the UP raids, sources said.
