Zee Media Bureau/Ritesh K Srivastava
New Delhi: Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Wednesday agreed to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s demand for handing over the Patna serial blasts case probe to the National Investigating Agency (NIA).
“Patna serial blasts case probe handed over to the NIA,” Home Minister told reporters following his meeting with the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has written a letter to the Home Ministry requesting it to hand over the blasts case to the NIA.
Initially, Shinde was scheduled to visit Patna on Tuesday, but due to non-availability of the Bihar Chief Minister, the Union Minister had to cancel his plans.
Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami yesterday visited Patna`s Gandhi Maidan. After visiting the blasts site, Goswami said, “We are investigating all angles, hopeful that we will soon be successful in getting to the bottom of this.”
Nitish and the Home Minister today reviewed the law and order situation in Bihar in the wake of multiple low intensity blasts in Patna.
Demanding a probe into the "criminal negligence" by the Bihar Chief Minister in ensuring security for its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi at Sunday`s Patna rally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged the Gandhi Maidan serial blasts were proof of Nitish Kumar`s failure.
"As a chief minister, Nitish Kumar who also holds the home portfolio failed to carry out his responsibilities. He has to answer the nation," BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain told media persons yesterday.
Mohammad Imtiaz Ansari, one of the two terror suspects arrested for serial blasts in Patna, was yesterday sent to judicial custody by a court here while a second terror suspect is battling for life.
Imtiaz, a resident of Ranchi, described as the brain behind the blasts, was arrested from Patna railway junction after a bomb exploded on platform No 10 on Sunday morning, ahead of BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi`s rally here.
The second terror suspect, Ainul alias Tarique, is admitted at a government hospital here after he was found crying in pain at a Patna railway junction toilet after a bomb exploded when he was trying to fix it or fit a timer.
Six people were killed and 83 injured in seven bomb blasts in Patna. The first of the blasts ripped through a toilet at around 10 am at the railway station in the heart of the city, killing one person and wounding another.
After an hour, by which time Modi had reached Patna but not the rally ground, four explosions took place inside the Gandhi Maidan, and two around it that caused a lot of panic.
The Patna railway station is located two-three km from the Gandhi Maidan.
