1 more arrested in Kushinagar mosque blast case

One more person was held in connection with the Kushinagar mosque blast case, taking the total number of arrests to seven, a senior police official said on Saturday.

The seventh accused in the blast case was arrested in the Turkpatti police station area of Kushinagar district late Friday night, Station House Officer Sanjay Kumar said.

He identified the man as Salauddin Ansari alias Munna.

On Monday, a blast had rocked a mosque in Bairagi Patti village in Turkpatti area of Kushinagar, injuring a man.

Police said with Salauddin's arrest all the accused persons have now been apprehended.

A man, identified as Haji Qutubuddin who is associated with the mosque and was injured in the blast, was arrested after questioning on Friday. His grandson, Ashfaq, who works in the Army and was posted in Hyderabad, too was called for questioning and later arrested.

Inspector General, Law and Order, Praveen Kumar said in Lucknow that no terror link in the case has been found so far.

We are probing the matter," he added.

The other four accused -- Maulana Azimuddin, Izhar, Ashiq Ansari and Javed Ansari -- were arrested on Tuesday.

"The four who were arrested on Tuesday have been sent to police remand for 48 hours starting Friday morning. Haji Qutubuddin and his grandson Ashfaq were cross examined. Agencies like the IB, ATS, special intelligence are interrogating them and it is not known yet whether they have links with terrorists," Inspector General, Gorakhpur, Jai Narain Singh said.

Earlier, the cleric of the mosque, Azimuddin, a resident of West Bengal, and some other people had told police that the blast was due to an explosion in an inverter battery.

However, the bomb disposal squad and the forensic team from Gorakhpur found explosives in the blast remnants.

Later during interrogation, Azimuddin told police that the explosives had been procured with the help of four persons from Qutubuddin's village.

The seven have been booked under relevant sections of the law, police said.