Mumbai, Jul 14 ; The Mumbai Mirror on Friday reported that the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad had homed in on an operative and were keeping tabs on his movement in Mumbai, but he suddenly disappeared from the radar at around 12 noon, nearly 6 hours before the serial blasts on Wednesday.Did the police know a terror attack on Mumbai was imminent?
The report said, top home ministry sources say the suspicion is now on this man,and the hunt for him is the government's prime concern.
It even compelled the government to insist that ATS chief Rakesh Maria and Crime Branch head Himanshu Roy,Mumbai police's famous frenemies,put aside their differences and concentrate on catching those behind this latest terror attack.
According to sources,following the arrests of two car thieves who had supplied stolen cars to Indian Mujahideen members for the 2008 Ahmedabad blasts,the ATS had been focussing on this suspect for the past two days.
"The ATS was trailing the suspect closely till Wednesday afternoon before he suddenly disappeared" a Mantralaya source said,not wishing to be identified.
The ATS and the Mumbai crime branch has formed six teams each to probe the triple blasts and one of the ATS teams has been specifically assigned to trace the missing suspect.ATS chief Rakesh Maria denied this development and said he would not like to comment further on the issue.
