Hyderabad blast suspect escapes, re-arrested

HYDERABAD: A suspect in the bomb blast in Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid on Sunday escaped from a police station here but was re-arrested after a two-kilometre chase.

Sameer alias Nayeem, an alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative, escaped from Mahankali police station in Secunderabad in the morning. Police said Sameer had gone to the toilet in the police station premises when he attacked the constable escorting him and escaped after jumping a 15-feet-high wall.

Kamalahasan Reddy, deputy commissioner of police, Task Force, said three constables chased him through dingy lanes as he tried to escape. After a two-km pursuit, they caught hold of Sameer in Bhoiguda area.

The Special Investigation Cell (SIC) probing the Mecca Masjid blast brought Sameer from Mumbai to Hyderabad on June 6 on a transit warrant for interrogating him.

Sameer, a native of Jalna in Maharashtra, was suspected to have transported RDX to Hyderabad that was used in the Mecca Masjid blast. He was also questioned by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team, which recently took over the blast probe.

He was arrested by the Border Security Force (BSF) in April while he alongwith at least three Pakistani nationals were trying to sneak into India from Bangladesh.

He was in judicial remand in Mumbai for his alleged role in last year's serial blasts on suburban Mumbai trains.

Sameer is the second suspect to be arrested from Jalna in Maharashtra. Earlier, Shoaib Jagirdar was also arrested and brought here. Police found no evidence linking him to the blast. He, however, was booked for helping Sameer in obtaining fake passport.