Naqi Ahmed Wasi Ahmed Sheikh, 22 and Nadeem Akhtar Ashfaq Sheikh, 23 were arrested on January 12 but the mastermind of the crime Yasin Bhatkal, a top Indian Mujahideen operative, and the planters of the IEDs used in the blasts are still out there, Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Rakesh Maria told reporters.

Maria said while Naqi came to Mumbai in September 2010, Nadeem, also from the same village in Bihar's Darbhanga district, was already living in the Antop Hill area of the city.

Naqi, according to Maria, came in touch with Ahmed Zarar Siddibappa alias Yasin Bhatkal alias Imran in 2008.

He said Nadeem was called to Delhi by Bhatkal and handed over a cloth packet containing the explosive and detonators used in the blast that was handed over to Naqi.

Naqi, he said, was given Rs 1.5 lakh by Bhatkal as commission for the crime in which at least Rs 10 lakh, received through hawala channels, was used. He said Naqi and Nadeem had stolen two Activa scooters that were used for carrying out the explosions. Two motorcycles also stolen by them and kept for future use have also been recovered from Bihar.

Rubbishing media reports that Naqi was innocent and was being tortured in police custody, Maria said he was aware of Bhatkal's antecedents.

Naqi not only assisted Bhatkal in scouting for an apartment in Habib Building in Byculla but also paid the money for accommodation, the ATS chief said.

Maria said Bhatkal and two others, who had planted explosives and whose names he refused to divulge lest it hamper investigations, are still eluding the police dragnet. Another accused, Haroon Rashid Naik, has already been arrested by the ATS in a counterfeit currency case.

Naik, he said, had been arrested in August last year and ATS would today seek a transfer warrant for him from the court. "We need Naik from Mumbra to investigate the money trail in the case," he said.

Maria trashed media reports that suggested Bhatkal had managed to escape because of poor coordination between the Mumbai ATS and the Delhi police.

"Bhatkal was in the city in June and for some time in July. He left on July 13 and did not come back," he said.

The ATS chief said several articles including computer and clothes of the inmates of the Byculla room have been seized for forensic examination. "We have asked for a forensic analysis of the room as we believe the IEDs used for the blasts were assembled there," he said.

Maria said 40 officers and over 100 men of the ATS had visited 18 states as part of the ongoing investigation and examined 12,373 witnesses.

The ATS chief also junked reports about any tiff or lack of coordination with the Delhi police in carrying out the probe, saying investigators from Mumbai were getting all cooperation from their Delhi counterparts.

"Competition is good and it should be there. Which police does not want to crack the case, but there is no rivalry," he said.

Maria said he would have liked to go to the media only after wrapping up the investigation but decided to hold the press conference owing to "speculative reporting and rumour mongering".

Meanwhile, the police produced Naqi and Nadeem before a Mumbai court which granted their custody to ATS till February 2.

Terror struck Mumbai on July 13, 2011 when three near simultaneous blasts ripped through crowded areas in the city in a grim reminder of the deadly 2008 Mumbai attack.

All explosions were triggered by Improvised Explosive Devices(IED).

The first explosion rocked Zaveri Bazar, a bustling jewellery market, at 6.50 pm and a minute later another blast shook the busy business area Opera House. A third blast ripped through crowded Dadar in central Mumbai at 7.04 pm. The blasts at Opera House and Zaveri Bazaar were of a higher intensity than the one at Dadar.

Though no group claimed responsibility for the blasts, Mumbai police had all along suspected the hand of home-grown terror outfit Indian Mujahideen.