Patna blasts suspect Mehrar Alam escapes from NIA custody.

published on October 31, 2013

NEW DELHI: Mehrar Alam, a suspect in Patna serial blasts, has escaped from NIA custody on Thursday, police said.

Mehrar Alam was being questioned in Muzaffarpur, some 70km from Patna, when he reportedly escaped from the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA). NIA has filed an FIR after his escape.

The man who has escaped is suspected of being a close associate of Tehseen Akhtar, who is one of the six men listed as an accused for the terror attack, and is allegedly a top commander of terror group Indian Mujahideen. He has not been located so far by the police.

Serial low-intensity blasts rocked Patna on Sunday, before and during Gujarat chief minister and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s “Hoonkar” rally at the historic Gandhi Maidan in the city. One blast took place in the railway station and others took place in and around Gandhi Maidan.

The blasts killed six people and injured over 80.

Earlier on Thursday morning, Muhammad Afzal, a kin of another blast suspect Ujjair Ahmad, was arrested from IGI airport in Delhi. He had come to the airport to see off his wife when he was detained by security agencies and taken for questioning, sources said.

NIA sleuths had arrested Ujjair Ahmad on Wednesday in connection with the blasts case besides an associate of suspected Indian Mujahideen member, Imtiaz Ansari, who is accused of triggering Sunday’s first blast at the Patna railway station.

Tipped off by the Patna Police and the NIA, the associate Arshad Ahmad was picked by the local police from Alauli village in Bihar’s East Champaran district.

Two other suspects, identified as Tausim and Imtiaz Ansari, were arrested soon after the bomb blasts in the Bihar capital on Sunday.

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