A 37-year-old man arrested by Mumbai’s Matunga Police this month in an Arms Act case has become a suspect in the Malegaon bomb blast probe as he allegedly revealed during his narco-analysis that he was an active member of Abhinav Bharat and had attended all its meetings leading up to the blast and knew all the arrested suspects.

Sudhakar Chaturvedi, who was held on November 4, alleged that it was Lt Col Prasad Purohit, the only serving Army officer arrested in the case, who had procured a bogus military identification card for him along with a revolver.

Chaturvedi was subjected to brain-mapping and polygraph tests at the Kalina Forensic Sciences Laboratory on Wednesday. The state Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), which is probing the Malegaon blast, is due to seek custody of Chaturvedi on Thursday for questioning.

“During a narco-analysis test conducted on him at the Bangalore Forensic Sciences Laboratory on Monday, Chaturvedi stated that he was an active member of Abhinav Bharat and had attended all its meetings in the run-up to the Malegaon blast. He is one of the only two paid-employees of Abhinav Bharat, and knows the accused arrested so far such as Pragya Singh Thakur and Prasad Purohit,” said Senior Police Inspector Sunil Deshmukh of the Matunga Police station.

Acting on a tip-off, Matunga Police had laid a trap outside Mumbai’s Dadar (East) railway station and arrested Chaturvedi on November 4. He was allegedly found with a factory-made Indian revolver and was booked under the Arms Act. Police also recovered a fake Indian Army ID card from him at the time of the arrest.

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