Hyderabad blasts: Three days on, PM visits sites as NIA grills 12 suspected LeT operatives

Hyderbad: Three days after twin blasts claimed 16 lives and injured 117 in Hyderabad, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday visited the injured in the hospital and urged people to "maintain calm in the hour of grief". Even as Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said evidence recovered from the blast sites were under examination, the National Investigation Agency questioned 12 men - believed to be members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba - arrested in Bangalore.

There was tight security at the blast sites in Hyderabad on Sunday morning as the Prime Minister visited them along with Andhra Governor ESL Narasimhan and Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy. "I have been assured by the state government that the best possible medical care is being made available to the injured and it is most important that in this hour of grief, people should maintain calm," he said.

Meanwhile, investigation in the tragic incident was reported to have progressed slightly with sources saying that the cycles and ammonium nitrate used in the blasts were procured locally. Several witnesses were also being questioned in connection with the incident.

"We have received some evidence that is being examined by the forensic team," said Shinde. Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma also confirmed that witnesses were being examined. "We are trying to talk to people who witnessed the incident or were injured so that we get to know how things happened," he said.

Sources said police were questioning 12 arrested Lashker-e-Toiba suspects in Bangalore, who were recently chargesheeted by the NIA. They were also checking if the two men arrested in Raxaul in Bihar had any links to the blast.

The investigating agencies were also finding out if there had been any recent visits to high security prisoners in the country. In fact, police confirmed that alleged Indian Mujahideen operative Maqbool had visited a prisoner Firoz Khan at the Nellore district jail recently. The NIA teams assisted by state police units had also reportedly left for Maharashtra and Bihar.

For the investigating agencies though, the challenge remains to collate information from various states and trace the terror web that seems spread far and wide.