The National Investigation Agency wrote to the Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday seeking a transfer of the inquiry into the Kanpur train derailment, ANI reported. This comes two days after the Bihar police said there was a possible involvement of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence in the derailment of Patna-Indore Express in November 2016.
Three suspects – Umashankar Patel, Motilal Paswan and Mukesh Yadav – were arrested by the state police on Tuesday. Investigators said the accused had told them that they were given Rs 3 lakh to plant explosives on the Ghorasahan railway track. “They have confessed to having worked for a Nepal-based ISI agent [Brij Kishore Giri],” the police had said.
The agency made a series of statements on Thursday, including updates about its investigation into militant attacks as well that into controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik and his NGOs. The agency said investigators were looking to 78 bank accounts Naik held in India, and that the televangelist had invested around Rs 100 crore in real estate. Naik has been in the radar of Indian probe agencies since one of the militants involved in the 2016 Dhaka cafe attack said he was inspired by his speeches.
An NIA official also told ANI that the Lashkar-e-Taiba was responsible for the militant attack in Uri, not the Jaish-e-Mohammed as the Centre had announced. The investigations, however, revealed that JeM was behind the recent strike in Nagrota.
Moreover, the agency said it was investigating two bank accounts of Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
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