Eyewitnesses have failed to identify two suspects detained by the Uttar Pradesh police in connection with the twin blasts in Varanasi on Tuesday, official sources said.

Sadiq Ali and Ansar, whose faces resembled the sketches released by police, were paraded a number of times before two witnesses at a hotel in the temple town on Saturday, the sources said.

After the identification parade, the two said they were not the same persons who had allegedly kept a bag containing the bomb at Godaulia market on March 7.

The two suspects, along with six others, were picked up from a marketplace in Hardoi on Friday evening.

Shopkeepers of Godaulia market were called to the hotel to identify the two suspects.

Police had prepared the sketches on the basis of information provided by the shopkeepers.

Hardoi police station in-charge V K Mishra told PTI the two had booked rooms in the rest house where they had checked in on Thursday in the name of Javed, a resident of Dulaipur in Jaunpur district.

The Special Task Force, probing the twin blasts that left 20 people dead and over 50 wounded, was, however, tight-lipped about the outcome of the identification parade.

The sleuths were not taking any chances and were on their job, STF sources said.

An STF team had been dispatched to Shahjahanpur, where the suspects claimed to have stayed before reaching Hardoi, and another to Muzaffarpur in Bihar, their home town, the sources said.