IM’s Salman,accused in Delhi blasts,held at Nepal border in UP

The ATS produced Salman before a special court in Lucknow district jail at noon on Saturday. The court allowed a two-day transit remand to the Special Cell of Delhi Police to take Salman to Delhi.

ADG (Law & Order),Brij Lal,told reporters that Salman had confessed to interrogators that he fled to Nepal soon after the names of IM operatives came to light following the Batla House encounter of September 2008. He hid at various places in Nepal under false identities,Brij Lal said. According to the police,Salman received training in sophisticated firearms and timer devices at a terrorist camp near Lahore during his stay in Pakistan.

Salman has told interrogators that he was recruited into the IM in 2007 along with Mohammad Saif (arrested from Batla House) by Atif Ameen,who was killed in that encounter. Salman was 18 years old then,and was writing his Class XI exams.

Salman is the fifth alleged IM operative arrested in UP since the Batla House encounter. The ATS had earlier arrested Arif,Hakim, Sarvar and Shahzad alias Pappu,all residents of Azamgarh,for their involvement in different blasts. Hakim and Shahzad were,like Salman,carrying rewards from the Delhi Police. Six other wanted accused — Ariz alias Junaid,Mohammad Sajid,Dr Shahnawaz,Mirza Shadab Beig,Mohammad Khalid and Asadullah Akhtar — are yet to be traced. All the men belong to Azamgarh.

The ADG said Salman had planted the bombs that went off in a Varanasi courthouse on November 23,2007,and in Gorakhpur on May 22,2007. He was also involved in the serial blasts in Jaipur,Ahmedabad and Delhi on May 13,July 26 and September 13,2008,respectively.

Brij Lal said Salman,born in 1989,went to school in Mumbai,where he stayed with relatives. His father Shakeel is employed in Saudi Arabia. After failing his Class X exams,Salman took admission at the Government Inter College in Sanjarpur. After completing Class XII,he went to Lucknow in 2008,and enrolled for a BCA correspondence course from the Sapru Marg,Hazratganj,centre of the Sikkim Manipal University,Brij Lal said.

The centre head of the university,Harpal Dhillon,however said Salman had applied for admission along with a draft of Rs 9,000,but his application had been rejected,and the university had refunded a spart of the application fees. The draft for Rs 8,500 had,however,remained unclaimed,Dhillon said.

Sources in the ATS said Salman had rented a room at 119/154,Khandari Lane,in Lucknow’s Qaiserbagh at the time the IM was planning the Jaipur blasts. Salman gave this address in his application for the BCA course. The sources said Mohammad Saif and Atif had been frequent visitors here in the months before the Delhi blasts. Salman stayed at this address till the first week of September,2008.

The owner of the house,Mushtaq Ahmed,who runs a wholesale medicine business,denied knowledge of Salman. He said five youths from Azamgarh had been his tenants,but he stopped renting out rooms after the ATS raided his house in 2008. The ATS team too had asked him about Salman,Ahmed said.