MUMBAI, OCTOBER 13: The contents of the Pakistan dossier prepared by the Anti-terrorist Squad (ATS) may be a bit thin on specific evidence on the 7/11 blasts but it has details on the Pakistani operatives who crossed over to conduct operations.

Police commissioner A N Roy and ATS chief K Raghuvanshi have already briefed the Central government about the Pakistani involvement. However, they have not submitted any documentary evidence or dossier yet.

The investigation into the 7/11 blasts, which were initially perceived to be purely the handiwork of locals, changed course after the arrest of Kamal Ansari from Madhubani in Bihar on July 21. The ATS dossier records an input of an intercept soon after Ansari’s arrest: “Hamara ek banda pakda gaya hai, Allah na kare woh kucch bol de.”

However, none of the Pakistanis questioned by the ATS have been booked in the case. “We have not shared the information on Pakistan’s involvement with anyone. We don’t want to book any Pakistani against whom we don’t have any evidence,” Roy told The Indian Express.

“As we have already said, we suspect the involvement of 11 Pakistanis in the blasts, one of whom was killed in an encounter and another died in the train blasts. We are trying to trace the rest of them,” said.

The ATS files on Pakistan have several incomplete names and pseudonyms of Pakistanis who are at large — they include Abu Hasan Hafiz, Aslam, Sabir, Salim, Abu Bakr, Sohail Shaikh, Abdul Razzak, Ehsanullah, Kasam Ali and Ammu Jaan.

“We will never know if these are real names. For instance, even Pakistani Riyaz, whom we caught at Kalachowkie, never knew that Abu Umaid was Abu Osama who was also known as Abu Salem. We found proof of Abu Osama’s multiple identities after he was shot by us in the Antop Hill encounter,” said Jaijeet Singh, Additional Commissioner of Police.

Proof of Pakistani involvement comes from the arrests made not only by the ATS but also the Border Security Force (BSF) in West Bengal. The BSF has handed over at least two Pakistanis.

When ACP Jaijeet Singh interrogated the two intruders who were arrested on September 2 in West Bengal, he immediately knew they were Pakistanis by the dialect they spoke.

“An Indian Punjabi will say Main kar raanga, utthe jaa vanga (I will do it, I will go there) but when a Panjabi from Pakistan says the same, he will say Main kar saan, main utthe jaa saan,” said Singh.

They both had claimed to be “fidayeen” and disclosed that their masters had instructed them to reach Mumbai before Independence Day for a major operation before August 20.

Neither of them had been to Mumbai. “There are six others from the same batch who have managed to elude the police. We are still trying to trace them,” said Singh, whose ancestors hail from Mojiawala in Pakistan’s Gujrat.

While Mohammad Sohail Adnan’s roots were traced to Shaampur in Qadian, his colleague Mohammad Bilal hailed from Vahulla Tubba in Rawalpindi. Both of them had crossed the border with Nazir and expected to meet one Shahid Chacha who would have brought them to Mumbai. But they were stranded as Chacha ditched them, apprehending trouble.

The four Pakistanis whose antecedents the ATS has managed to trace so far are from the Panjab and Gujrat in Pakistan.

The first Pakistani involvement in the blasts came to light by sheer chance. Mohammad Riyaz Nawabuddin was intercepted at Kalachowkie with an imported pistol on August 24. When questioned, Nawabuddin pretended to be from Siwan in Bihar. It turned out that he was a resident of 4 WB, police station Matchiswala, district Vihari in Pakistan’s Panjab. His boss Abu Osama, who was killed in an encounter at Antop Hill the same day, was a resident of Char Chak in Faisalabad.