A two-member team of the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Mumbai police interrogated two of the 11 detained Muslim youths in Agartala who hailed from Mumbra town in Maharashtra's Thane district.

The interrogations were carried out on Monday night after the ATS team arrived and the rest of the youths would be questioned later at Sonarai where they were detained from a mosque, the police said.

The youths were apprehended from a mosque located at the border village of Sonarai in Tripura's Dhalai district on July 13 after the serial blasts in Mumbai and Srinagar [Images] on July 11. The youths, who had identified themselves as religious activists, were detained for being involved in suspicious activities.

They were also found to be trying to contact some people in Bangladesh. Of the 11, one is an electronic engineer who studied in Texas, the USA, another a textile engineer and yet another is a mechanical engineer and the rest are barely literate.

They had been staying in Tripura from June 26. The Tripura State Jamiat Ulama (Hind) President Tayebur Rahaman had yesterday claimed the youths were genuine members of the Tablig-e-Jamat, which, he said, was confirmed by the Nizamuddin mosque in Delhi and the Mumbra Halka Jimedar and were not involved with any militant outfit like Students Islam Movement of India.