3rd suspect arrested over gurudwara attack in Germany

A third suspect has been arrested in connection with the bombing of a gurudwara by Islamist militants in the German city of Essen, police said today amid reports that two teenagers had rehearsed for the terror attack by detonating a prototype of their self-made bomb.

A special police unit took the unidentified man into custody at Essen’s central railway station yesterday evening on an arrest warrant issued against him by a district court in the city, police said. A person accompanying him was also detained and kept in custody, it said a statement.

Police gave no further details, but media reports identified the third man arrested as jihadist Tolga I, a seventeen-year-old jihadist and sympathiser of Islamic State (IS) terror group, from Wesel in the state of North Rhine Westphalia. Tolga I gave the orders to the two main suspects to carry out the terror attack.

16-year-old secondary school students Mohammed B and Yussuf T were arrested four days after they allegedly detonated a fire extinguisher filled with explosives at the entrance of the Nanaksar Satsangh Sabha Gurudwara on April 16.

Meanwhile, media reports said the two teenagers had rehearsed for the attack by detonating a prototype of their self-made bomb.

Police found a video of the trial explosion on a USB drive in the apartment of Mohammed B in Essen, TV channel WDR reported yesterday. Different material for making bombs, including detonator also were recovered.

The video showed the explosion of a bomb in an open area similar to the fire extinguisher filled with explosives they detonated at the entrance of the Nanaksar Satsangh Sabha Gurudwara.

Investigators now believe that the blast which ripped through the entrance hall of the gurudwara on the evening of April 16, injuring three persons, one of them seriously, was a meticulously planned operation.

During their interrogation, Mohammed B and his accomplice Yussuf T told the investigators that they carried out the bomb attack “for the fun of making fireworks”.

But, the Interior Ministry of the state of North Rhine Westphalia confirmed last week that the two sixteen-year-old secondary school students wanted to detonate the bomb inside the Sikh temple, which hosted a wedding ceremony, but they failed to break in through the entrance door. The two teenagers are currently in preventive custody.