After more than six moths of the now infamous, incident, the police have arrested two men, one from Nasik and the other from Pune, in Maharashtra for the German Bakery blast which killed 17 people in Pune in February, 2010. Maharashtra’s Anti-Terror Squad says RDX and literature on bomb-making were recovered from Himayat Baig and Bilal.
At 7.15 pm on February 13, 2010, an unattended bag exploded in Pune’s famous German Bakery near the Osho Ashram. Because it was a Saturday evening, the bakery was crowded. Many of those who died were young college students.
Additional Director General of Police, Maharashtra ATS, Rakesh Maria is on record saying that their efforts took the police to Karnataka, Gujarat and other states. The first arrest was made yesterday when Mirza Himayat Baig was arrested from the Mahatma Gandhi bus stand in Pune. He is involved in two previous cases as well.
Maria added that Himayat Baig came in connection with Akbar of the Indian Mujahideen module and went for training to Bhatkal. He is also the present LeT chief of Maharashtra. He is the man who has merged the Aurangabad module with the IM module.
Shedding more light on the investigation, Maria said that in the German Bakery case the conspiracy was hatched in January 2010. In the last week of January a meet was held in Latur district. After this meet Himayat Baig came to Pune on 31 January and did a recce. On 3rd February another meet was held and plans were finalised. From 7 February onwards Himayat Baig was executing the plan from his internet cafe and explosives were brought and bomb was prepared.
He also said that Himayat Baig was running the internet cafe at Udgir and Bilal was hiding in Nashik. The timer device used was a nokia mobile alarm that triggered the blast.
