Explosives case: 2 accused sent to ATS custody

A Mumbai court on Sunday sent two accused namely Leeladhar alias Vijay Lodhi and Vasudev Suryavanshi to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) custody till September 17 in connection with the terror conspiracy explosives case.

They were arrested by the ATS from Jalgaon district yesterday.

The prosecution of the ATS said, "Both the arrested accused were conspirators in a terror activity plan, we got their link from the existing accused arrested earlier. Three crude bombs, explosives, mobiles, four pen drives, two numbers plates have been recovered from residence and garage of first accused. Also, one DVD, pocket diaries, mobile phones, SIM cards, pen drive and other documents are recovered from the residence of the second."

As per the information shared by the prosecution in the court, the explosives were recovered from the residence of Vijay Lodhi.

Elaborating details of the explosive, the prosecuting lawyer said, "Recovered explosives have been sent to Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) for examination and the report prima facie is positive. Now the recovered explosives in the form of three balls are sent to Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for identifying the content used in their preparation."

Sanjeev Punalekar, the defence lawyer, representing the two accused requested the court to grant minimum remand and said, "The ATS took both the accused in custody three days ago. This should be considered by the court while deciding the numbers of days for remand. I would request to grant minimum days for remand as they were already into illegal custody for three days."

As per the remand copy, the accused were doing a recce of people who were allegedly against the Hindu religion or were making films against Hindu religion. The ATS also expressed its desire to check who all were on the target list of the accused.

The ATS is also investigating about any plans of terror activity in Jalgaon and Nashik by the arrested accused as well as trying to know where the accused got the explosives from.