STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 31 October
Mehar Alam, a key suspect in the Patna multiple blasts and Bodh Gaya blasts, managed to escape from the National Investigation Agency’s detention while he was being brought to Patna for interrogation by the investigating agency.
There were unconfirmed TV reports that Alam had been re-arrested late this evening from a train near Kanpur. However, the NIA did not confirm the re-arrest.
 The NIA also claimed that Alam was not technically ‘arrested’ so there was no question of his fleeing from police custody. They admitted that Alam was ‘detained’ by the NIA when he fled on the pretext of going to the washroom.
 Alam was served a notice to join the Bodh Gaya blasts investigation and until yesterday he was cooperating in the investigation, said a senior officer of the Home Ministry.
 But on Wednesday he did not turn up for questioning following which NIA raided a guest house in Muzaffarpur where he was putting up. The NIA detained him but before he could be ‘arrested’, he managed to flee on the pretext of attending to nature&’s call. According to sources, Alam had left behind his mobile phone which gave some leads to the police. After he fled, the NIA reported the matter to the local police and launched a manhunt to trace his whereabouts.  The agency also claimed that Alam was served a notice well before the Patna blasts and was being questioned about the Indian Mujahideen&’s terror operations. It admitted that he could be an active IM operative involved in the Bodh Gaya blasts as well as Patna serial blasts.
In a related development, another suspect has been detained in Delhi when he was on his way to the airport to see off his Pakistani wife.
Mohammed Aftab is a kin of yet another blast suspect Ujjair Ahmad who was arrested in Ranchi yesterday and taken on police remand. The first arrested accused in the case, Imtiaz, has given clues about the conspiracy that was hatched by Indian Mujahideen to create a communal wedge in Bihar, official sources said.
A separate report adds that one of the blast suspects has told interrogators that  six persons were entrusted with carrying out the serials blasts in Patna during BJP’s rally last Sunday,