NIA to probe suspected SIMI hand in Roorkee, Bijnor blasts

NEW DELHI: Government has decided that NIA will probe the 2014 blast at a VHP rally in Roorkee and explosion at a house in Bijnor as members of banned terror group SIMI were suspected to be involved in both the incidents.
The home ministry has received the requests of the governments of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh to hand over the two cases to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and a formal order is being issued in this regard, official sources said.
A 12-year-old boy was killed in the blast at the rally in Roorkee in Uttarakhand on December 6, 2014 while the December 14, 2014 explosion in Bijnor took place when Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) accused were mixing chemicals with Improvised Explosive Device (IEDs).
The role of five terrorists of the banned SIMI, who had escaped from the Khandwa jail in Madhya Pradesh in October 2013, is suspected in both the cases.
Two of these terrorists were killed in a recent encounter in Telangana earlier this month while three others are still on the run.
The Home Ministry suspects the SIMI members' involvement in a series of incidents in different parts of the country, including blasts at the Chennai railway station in May 2014, the explosion in Bijnor and the blast in Roorkee.
It is also being suspected that the same module had carried out the blast at Bengaluru last year that had left a woman dead. NIA wants all these cases shifted to the agency.
Home minister Rajnath Singh had written letters to the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka last month asking them to speed up investigations into the respective terror cases in their states.