Investigations, meanwhile, are still on to establish if Hamza was directly involved in the process of making the bomb or triggering the twin blasts. Hamza, who belongs to Rajshahi and is believed to have been working closely with Bilal, is said to be well-versed in explosives.

Recruited into HUJI by Rasool Khan Party after the Gujarat riots, Bilal set up networks in Hyderabad with the help of Asad Yazdani. A resident of Hyderabad’s Toli Chowki area, Yazdani operated under the alias Naved Gul and was allegedly involved in several terrorist strikes and the Pandya murder in which Hamza’s name figured.

Hamza was named as having allegedly helped Hyderabad men Yazdani and Mohammed Abdul Shahed in transporting and looking after terror trainees from Hyderabad, police sources said. His name was also mentioned by Mohammed Ibrahim, Abdul Sattar, Mohammed Abdul Kaleem and Khaja, all sent from Hyderabad, on the orders of Bilal, in early 2005, to Yazdani in Bangladesh and subsequently to Pakistan for arms and explosives training.

Yazdani and Khaja were killed in March 2006 in an alleged police encounter in New Delhi. The others Ibrahim, Sattar and Kaleem are in jail in connection with the STF suicide bomb attack. Hamza’s name also cropped up more recently in the Mecca Masjid probe — Sheikh Sameer alias Nayeem, who allegedly helped people get into India from Bangladesh, mentioned Hamza’s name in the course of a narco-analysis test.

The Bangladeshi national also found a mention in a fourth FIR filed by the Hyderabad police in connection with the August 25 twin blasts in the city that killed 44 people.

... contd.