Agencies

Lucknow, Sep 23: A joint team of Delhi Police and Uttar Pradesh Anti- Terrorist Squad (ATS) is conducting searches in Saraimeer, the native village of Delhi serial blasts main accused Atif in Azamgarh district of UP, official sources said.

The team reached the Sanjarpur area in Saraimeer village in the early hours of Tuesday. It is questioning Atif's relatives and conducting searches, ATS sources said.

The entire area has been cordoned off and the team is searching every house in the village. No one is allowed to leave the village till the operation is completed.

The team, the sources said, has succeeded in tracing a bank account of Atif at the Pawai branch of a nationalized bank, through which transactions of more than Rs 3 crore were done in the past six months.

The bank manager will also be questioned besides relatives of the accused, they said.

A chopper was also flown from Lucknow to Azamgarh so that if any suspects or accused are arrested they could be flown to Delhi or Lucknow, the sources said.

The ATS sources added that Delhi Police had got some leads during the interrogation of those arrested after an encounter in the capital on Friday about the links of terrorists in Azamgarh.

A Delhi Police team is also in Udupi, Karnataka, following leads that explosives used in Delhi were bought from areas around Mangalore. Highly placed police sources told Times Now that suspected Delhi bombers Atif and Saif staked out Karnataka ahead of the Delhi serial blasts and there was a definite Karnataka link to the blasts.