Bangalore/Bhatkal, July 17: A team of officials of Mumbai's Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) on Sunday reached Bangalore in connection with the Mumbai serial blasts probe.
The team had visited Bhatkal in Uttar Kannada district on Saturday. Speaking in Bangalore on Sunday, Jyoti Prakash Mirji, the Bangalore commissioner, said the city police will cooperate with the team and help them with their investigation.
He alo said a team from the Bangalore police will also visit Mumbai in order to study the modus operandi of the operators and look for any similarity between the Mumbai blast and the balsts that had taken place in Bangalore last year.
Though officials did not confirm it, sources in the police department said one of the ATS teams, which is investigating the serial blasts case, visited Bhatkal.
Meanwhile, a senior police official said that since Indian Mujahideen (IM) is suspected to have carried out the blasts, the ATS team had visited Bhatkal town.
"As Bhatkal is the hometown of Riyaz Bhatkal and his brother Iqbal, founders of Indian Mujahideen, teams probing blast cases visit Bhatkal expecting crucial information about the planning and execution of blasts," he said.
However, the officer said the chances of a breakthrough in the investigation from the Bhatkal visit were very slim.
"Some of the suspects in Bhatkal are used to police investigation following blasts. They know that police will question them after any blast and hence they usually leave Bhatkal after the blasts. In most cases, investigation teams return empty handed," he said.
Meanwhile, the city police plan to visit Mumbai in the coming week. The team will examine all the scenes of the blasts and gather information about what substances were used in the bombs. They will tally them with material used in the bombs used in the 2008 serial blasts and Chinnaswamy Stadium blast in 2010 in Bangalore.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Alok Kumar explained, "We will share the information with Mumbai police. If there are similarities in the Mumbai blasts and those in Bangalore, we can work together since the outfit behind the blasts could be same."
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