Mumbai, Aug 16 (IANS) The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Mumbai police is investigating a former Wipro engineer’s possible role in the July 26 Ahmedabad serial blasts, a senior police official said Saturday. The Gujarat Police passed on information about the engineer - whose identity has not been disclosed - to the ATS as one of the likely masterminds in the blasts along with one suspect, Mufti Abu Basheer who arrested in Lucknow Saturday, ATS chief Hemant Karkare told reporters here.

Karkare declined to reveal more details on the plea that it could hamper investigations.

On its part, the ATS alerted the Gujarat Police on the connections of three people - Sajid Mansuri, Shamsuddin Shaikh and Arif Kadri, said to active members of the banned outfit Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), he said.

These names had cropped up during the ATS’ investigations into the blasts links in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and other places.

The ATS arrested two people form Pune in a fake currency case, Nadeem Shaikh and Ayaz Khan, and they would be quizzed about their possible involvement in the Ahmedabad blasts, he added.

So far, the ATS has not made any formal arrests in connection with the Ahmedabad blasts, nor made any headway into the mystery of a terror email sent from the laptop of a US national, Kenneth Haywood, who stays in Navi Mumbai.

The email, from an organisation styling itself the Indian Mujahideen, was sent to media organisaitons minutes before the blasts and claimed responsibility for the terror attack in which 55 people were killed.

The ATS is also grappling with the case of the four stolen vehicles from Navi Mumbai which were used in the blasts.

However, the ATS is hopeful of getting leads from the forensic reports of the laptops and computers seized from some of Haywood’s neighbours in the Gunina Apartments of Sanpada suburb in Navi Mumbai.

Since last Tuesday, nearly 10 people, including Haywood have been subjected to polygraph and lie detector tests in connection with the terror e-mail, Karkare said.