BENGALURU: The city police are said to be hot on the heels of those involved in the Church Street blast. In an attempt to gather evidence and trace the steps of the suspected terrorist, the police are not only looking at the 11 CCTV cameras in the vicinity, but are also mapping routes leading to the street.
A senior official in the Special Investigation Team which is looking into the case said, “There are quite a few roads that lead to Church Street and a number of entry and exit points. We are looking at the available CCTV cameras in these areas to ascertain the suspect's movements and also to find out if more than one person was involved.”
Police are hoping that footage from the CCTV cameras will shed some light, not just on how many people were involved, but where recces were done. They are also expecting to get clearer images of the suspected terrorist.
City Police Commissioner M N Reddi had earlier said that CCTV footage from cameras on Church Street were blurred.
Senior police officials said that due to the amount of footage they have been accessing, the work has been divided among different teams who will analyse the footage with the help of a technical team. Shop owners and workers will also be questioned about suspicious movements in those areas.
The police are also analysing call record details of over one lakh phone calls made from the area over the days leading to the blast and on the day of the explosion itself. Progress, however, has been slow, officials said.
Mehdi’s Police Custody Ends Today
The city police are unlikely to ask for an extension of Islamic State sympathiser Mehdi Masroor Biswas's police custody. Police have had Biswas since December 13. He was arrested for his pro-IS tweets on his account @ShamiWitness. The Twitter handle had over 17,000 followers, of which several were jihadists. While in custody, the police had looked for clues into whether Biswas had a bigger role to play with regard to IS, but they ruled out the same after the first few days of enquiry. However, they had continued to download and analyse about 1.3 lakh of his tweets since 2009.Biswas was arrested after Channel 4, a UK-based channel, traced him to Bengaluru and interviewed him. He was arrested in the city a day later.