Court remands Ahmedabad blasts suspects to 14-day police custody

Ahmedabad, August 17 : An Ahmedabad court on Sunday sent nine persons accused of carrying out serial blasts that killed at least 45 people in the city last month to14-day police custody.

Gujarat police said that they belong to the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) who were arrested on Saturday.

Police said one of the arrested, Abu Bashir was the mastermind of the bombings and that all the suspects were active members of the banned SIMI. Bashir (30) was arrested in Lucknow.

One of the lawyers representing some of the nine accused said the court accepted the prosecution's plea and his clients would challenge it.

"It is fully accepted, they (prosecution) demanded 14 days remand and it was given to them. We will be challenging this order, this is an illegal order," said Hasim Qureshi, lawyer representing some of the accused.

At least 16 bombs exploded in Ahmedabad on July 26, a day after another set of blasts in Bangalore killed a woman. Three days later, several unexploded bombs were found in Gujarat's Surat town.

A little-known group called the "Indian Mujahideen" had claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad attacks. But police said Indian Mujahideen was just "another identity" for SIMI.

SIMI, a Muslim group has been blamed by police for almost every major bomb attack in India, including explosions on trains in Mumbai two years ago which killed 187 people.

ANI