Surat, Aug 27 (IANS) The serial blasts in Ahmedabad last month, which claimed 56 lives, and the planting of bombs in Surat, which were recovered without harm subsequently, were linked, the Gujarat police said Wednesday, as two people were arrested from here.Abu Bashir, who masterminded the Ahmedabad serial blasts July 26, was also behind the planting of 20-odd bombs in Surat, Director General of Police P.C. Pande told reporters here.

The Surat city police got a major breakthrough with the arrest of Tanvir Pathan and Zahir Patel, both residents of Surat, who had planted the bombs in this south Gujarat city, Pande said.

The police found as many as 29 bombs and two cars laden with explosives from the city in the last week of July. The bombs, said to have been planted on the night of July 24-25, were recovered from the densely populated Varaccha locality, where a majority of the diamond cutting and polishing units are situated. Some of the bombs were found on trees and hoardings.

Though none of the bombs exploded, their discovery created panic among people and commercial activities, especially in Varachha, came to a standstill for over four days.

Pande said: “We now have evidence to link the two conspiracies.” Tanvir and Zahir were closely linked to Sahid Mansuri who had provided the logistics and is a key accused in the Ahmedabad blasts case, the police chief said.

He confirmed the live bombs recovered from Surat were of high intensity and could have created havoc had they exploded.

However, Pande refused to divulge more information to the media. “Revealing details regarding police’s probe will hamper further investigation,” he said.

“Two to four more suspects are yet to be caught and they would reveal more about the timers used,” he said.

Forensic Science Laboratory director Jayant Vyas explained why the Surat bombs did not go off. The circuits and chips used in them had faulty connections, he said, adding that the terrorists made a small error in power supply of transistors.

Unlike Ahmedabad these detonators failed to explode as the power output needed to trigger the detonator was not generated sufficiently, Vyas said.

The 22 coordinated blasts in Ahmedabad had claimed 56 lives. The Ahmedabad police claimed to have “nearly solved” the terror conspiracy with the arrest of Abu Bashir from Lucknow, saying the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was behind it.