Hyderabad, June 20:The elite anti-terrorist force of the State police, OCTOPUS, here on Saturday filed a voluminous charge-sheet in the sensational Gokul Chat Bhandar bomb blast case in the Court of First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Nampally.
It may be mentioned here that in all, 33 people were killed and another 47 were grievously injured when the blast occurred in the crowded eatery at Koti on the evening of August 25, 2007. This is the third charge sheet filed against seven accused in the case. The Octopus had earlier filed two separate charge-sheets in another bomb blast occurred at Lumbini Park Laserium and recovery of an unexploded bomb at a crowded place in Dilsukhnagar area on the same day two years ago.
The 1,125-page charge sheet, enclosed with 314 documents and citing names of 286 witnesses has been filed against the same seven accused named in the earlier two charge-sheets. All the accused are non-locals and four of them who were arrested by the Mumbai police last year are lodged in the Cherlapally Central Jail near here.
The seven accused named in the charge-sheet are: Mohd Akbar Ismail Chowdhary alias Sayeed, Anique Shafeeq Sayeed alias Anique, Riyaz Bhatkal alias Roshan Khan, Iqbal Bhatkal alias Mohammed Bhai, Farooq Sharfuddin Tarkash alias Abdullah, Mohd Sadiq Ansar Ahmed Shaik alias Yaseer and Amir Reza Khan alias Muttaki.
Akbar Ismail Chowdhary, Aneeq Shafeeq and Ansar Ahmad Shaikh were arrested by the Mumbai police in October 2008 and were brought to Hyderabad in February this year.
According to the charge-sheet, Riyaz Bhatkal alias Roshan Khan was the brain behind the conspiracy and the blasts and he continues to be at large along with two other accused.
With the filing of the charge sheet today, the way was cleared for the trial of the accused in the twin blast cases at Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat as well as the recovery of an unexploded bomb at Disukhnagar.
The police said that it was Riyaz Bhatkal who actually planted the bomb at Gokul Chat while Aneeq Shafeeq planted another bomb at Lumbini Park. The third bomb at Dilsukhnagar bridge was placed by Akbar Chowdhary, but it did not explode, they added. (NSS)