Delhi blast: NIA arrests two from Uttarakhand’s Haldwani district
They were identified as Mohammed Asif, the imam of the Bilali mosque in Haldwani, and electrician Nazar Kamal.
The National Investigation Agency has arrested a cleric and one of his associates from the Haldwani district in Uttarakhand in connection with the blast near Delhi’s Red Fort on November 10, PTI reported.
The two men – Mohammed Asif, the imam of the Bilali mosque in Haldwani, and electrician Nazar Kamal – were arrested on Friday night by a team of the central agency with the help of police officials in Delhi and Haldwani. They have now been taken to the national capital.
Asif and Kamal were arrested from Haldwani’s Banbhulpura area based on call records from a mobile number linked to Umar Nabi, the doctor who was believed to have been driving the car that exploded near the Red Fort, PTI quoted unidentified officials as saying.
After their arrests, a large number of police personnel from several stations, led by Haldwani City Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Katyal and Lal Kuan Deputy Superintendent of Police Deepshikha Agarwal, were deployed in Banbhulpura.
The police have increased security around the cleric’s home and around the Bilali mosque, PTI quoted Katyal as saying.
The blast near the Red Fort metro station left 13 persons dead. Two days after the explosion, the Union government described it as a “terrorist incident”.
On November 16, the agency arrested an aide allegedly linked to Nabi, who was identified as Amir Rashid Ali. The NIA alleged that the Hyundai i20 car used in the blast was registered in Ali’s name. This was the first arrest in the case.
The others arrested in the case till now have been identified as Jasir Bilal Wani alias Danish, Muzammil Shakeel Ganai, Adeel Ahmed Rather, Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay, Shaheen Saeed and Soyab.
