Police on Wednesday arrested a senior Indian army officer for alleged involvement in a bomb blast that killed five people in a market crowded with Muslim shoppers in a western Indian town, a government prosecutor said.
Police have blamed the Sept. 29 blast on a hard-line Hindu group, Abhinav Bharat, and so far arrested nine people.
The army handed over Lt. Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit, a Hindu, to the police anti-terrorist squad Wednesday, said Ajai Misar, a government prosecutor. Misar told Chief Magistrate K.D. Boche that Purohit had abetted the crime, but did not give details.
The Press Trust of India news agency said the army officer allegedly provided explosives and money to the suspects.
A crude bomb on a motorcycle killed five people and wounded 30 others on Sept. 29 in Malegaon, a town nearly 180 miles (290 kilometers) northeast of Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital.
The blast occurred in a market crowded with Muslim shoppers, ahead of breaking their Ramadan fast.
Malegaon has long been the scene of violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims, who make up 75 percent of the town's 500,000 residents.
Relations between Hindus, representing more than 80 percent of India's population, and Muslims, who account for about 130 million of India's 1.1 billion people, have been relatively peaceful since the bloody partition of the subcontinent into India and Muslim Pakistan at independence from Britain in 1947.
But there have been sporadic bouts of violence and distrust runs deep between the communities in some parts of the country.
