Thursday, February 9 2006 15:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Two militants, held with a cache of arms and high-grade explosives, have been further remanded to police custody till February 13 by a local court.

The duo, Mushiruddin Salauddin Siddiqui (27) and Mansoor Mohammed Ansari, were yesterday produced before magistrate A S Garade who remanded them to further custody.

The accused were arrested by Anti-terrorist Squad (ATS) on January 30 at Lokmanya Tilak terminus in suburban Kurla when they arrived here by Gorakhpur-Kurla Kushinagar Express.

Seeking their remand, police told the court that the investigations were incomplete and they needed to find out the sources of ammunition seized from them.

One of the accused was trained in Pakistan for three weeks to make bombs and details about where and how he got the training were yet to be confirmed, the court was told.

ATS recovered two imported firearms and one kg of highly inflammable high-grade explosive, besides topograhpic maps of Maharashtra, Mumbai and Manali (Himachal Pradesh) from the two accused. ATS is awaiting forensic report about the explosive.

Of them, Siddiqui was interrogated earlier in connection with the 1993 serial bomb blasts, but was released as police had then not been able to prove his involvement in the blasts.

Siddiqui has admitted that he underwent training in bomb-making for 22 days in Pakistan, but police suspects that he could be involved further in subversive activities.

Ansari came in contact with Siddiqui through a friend. Police is probing why he travelled from Birgang to Gorakhpur and took a train with Siddiqui to reach Mumbai.