But on Friday, Thai police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri claimed that based on the information gathered by the Thai authorities and Bangladeshi officials, Izan left Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on August 30 and was being tracked in New Delhi and then Abu Dhabi on his way to Istanbul.
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Prawut said Ishan, who left Thailand a day before the blast and is wanted on the charge of “jointly possessing illegal military supplies”, belonged to the criminal network that police believe is responsible-but he was “not the mastermind” of the attack.
This has started the rumors that those behind the attack are Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) from the Chinese area of Xinjiang speculated to have close ties to Turkey.
But a senior Turkish government official denied that the man had escaped to the country. “There is not any document of the suspect having entered Turkey”.
“At this point, we’re working very hard to understand what the Thai government is trying to accomplish by desperately trying to associate Turkey with the attack”, Reuters quote an official as saying.
Thailand has so far detained two suspects in connection with the blasts and issued arrest warrants for 12 others. Few suspect that they may be Islamist extremists or separatists angry that Thailand repatriated more than 100 Uighurs to China in last month. One of them was captured at an apartment on the outskirts of Bangkok where police also discovered bomb-making material, and was in possession of a fake Turkish passport, police said.
Meanwhile, police are waiting for Malaysia to confirm officially whether its arrest of three suspects including a Pakistani and two Malaysians has any link to the two blasts.
It is not clear though whether either Bangladesh or India or both had received any intimation about this man from Thai police after the explosion.
Lt Gen Sriwara said suspects connected to the bombing did not stay in the room, but they came to the room and asked the tenants to hold on to their personal belongings.
“We feel there is no need at present to hand them over to Thai authorities”, he said.
Doctors said that the woman, who now faces up to three years in prison, risked her health because the precious stone could have damaged her large intestine. Twisted iron railings were the only immediate sign of the carnage, which police believe was caused by a bomb made up of three kilogrammes of explosives and ball bearings.
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Thai police said the network that they uncovered was involved in human smuggling.
