The man from Poonch district who Mumbai police say they want in connection with the 7/11 train blasts had been cleared by the joint interrogation centre (JIC), where he was interrogated by various agencies from July 27 to August 2.

Mumbai police detained Abdul Hamid, 30, of Sanai village, Surankote, today and are taking him to Mumbai for investigations.

However, the local police had already had him interrogated at the JIC on receiving a tip-off from Mumbai police: Hamid’s voter ID card had been found at one of the blast sites, and he wasn’t at the private security firm where he had been employed as a guard for the past 16 years. His brother Javed still works at the same agency.

Sources told The Indian Express that during interrogation at the JIC, Hamid had told them he’d taken a train from Bandra for Jammu on June 29 — 12 days before the blasts.

On July 1, he had approached the sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) for Mendhar (Hamid has some land there) with a complaint that he’d lost his voter ID to a pickpocket at the Bandra station but continued the journey as he had some money with him. He requested the SDPO to issue another ID as it would be required during security checks in the area. The SDPO had sent him to Gursai police station.

A senior police officer said that when the Mumbai police informed their J-K counterpart about Hamid, they did not find him at home. The Surankote police had then brought his parents to the station and later, Hamid was produced before police by some respected community leaders of the area, following which he was interrogated at the JIC.

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