A LEAD FROM THE PAST

One of those who was randomly picked up and questioned was Afzal Mutalib Usmani (30). While he reportedly owned up to some recent car thefts, he pleaded ignorance when questioned about the cars the police were specifically tracking.

“When we were unable to establish the identity of the car thief we were looking for, we went back to past records of the car thieves we had rounded up. We noticed that in 1996 an offence had been registered against Usmani at Shivaji Nagar police station for assaulting video-parlour owner Mangal Prasad Pandey when he set up shop beside a masjid. A co-accused in the case was a SIMI activist identified as Amir Chougule. Once this SIMI link was unearthed, we knew Usmani matched the profile of the car thief we were looking for. This was the biggest lead in the case, and put us on the right track. We picked him up from Mau district in UP while he was about to board a train,” says Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria.

On the evening of September 14, a day after the Delhi serial blasts, while Mumbai was busy with Ganesh idol immersions, Maria was busy confronting Usmani with discrepancies in what he had been telling the police. Finally, at about 8 pm, a weary Usmani broke down and blurted out all he knew.

Usmani reportedly confessed that he had placed the explosives-laden cars at the Civil Hospital and a market in Ahmedabad, and disclosed Riyaz Bhatkal alias Roshan Khan’s name to police. The Mumbai Police now claim that Bhatkal, who remains absconding, is one of the co-founders of the IM. Police learnt that Usmani and Bhatkal were former members of the Fazl-ur-Rehman criminal gang.

The police say Usmani led them to another co-founder, Mohammed Sadiq Israr Ahmed Shaikh (33), as well as Mohammed Arif Badruddin Shaikh (38), Mohammed Zakir Abdul Haq Shaikh (26) and Ansar Ahmed Badshah Shaikh (35). All five hail from Azamgarh and were residing in Muslim-dominated areas in Mumbai such as Cheetah Camp and Mumbra. They were arrested on September 24 from different parts of the city.

According to the police, Sadiq was the leader of the arrested group and was in touch with Bhatkal for the resources required for operations. The group’s controller was identified as Pakistan-based Amir Reza Khan, who received orders from Abu-al-Qama. Arif, the police claimed, was responsible for assembling the circuits used in all major blasts in the country since 2005. The group is behind almost all the major blasts in the country since 2005, the police added.

During interrogation, Arif revealed that he was taken by Bhatkal to Pune to assemble circuits, and that he had stayed in a building in the Kondhwa area of the city for nearly a week. A police team took Arif to Pune, where he identified ‘Ashoka Mews’ as the building. The IM had set up base in a room in one of the flats. In a stake-out on September 28, police nabbed Asif Bashir Shaikh (22), Mubin alias Salman Qadar Shaikh (24) and Mohammed Akbar Ismail Choudhary (28) as they trooped into the building to check news on the September 27 Mehrauli blast in Delhi on a TV set kept in the room.

Soon, they led the police to Mohammed Mansoor Asgar Peerbhoy (31). Mohammed Atiq Mohammed Iqbal (25) was picked up from Pusab in Yavatmal the same day. On October 4, the Crime Branch arrested Dastagir Phiroz Mujawar (25) from Pune, and the next day Anique Shafiq Sayyed (27), Majid Akhtar Shaikh (26), Yasir Anees Sayyed (20) and Faroooq Sharfuddin Tarkash (25). Fazl-e-Rehman Mus Khan Durani (23) was arrested from Parbhani.

According to the police, the Pune arrests have neutralised the “media wing” behind the IM terror e-mails. Bhatkal and his elder brother Iqbal reportedly gave material for the mails to Asif Bashir Shaikh, who then prepared a rough draft with Mubin. This was passed on for final touches to Peerbhoy, a principal software engineer at a Yahoo! India subsidiary. Asif, Mubin and Peerbhoy were driven down to Navi Mumbai and Mumbai by Choudhary, where they tapped into unsecure Wi-Fi connections.

On October 5, a Crime Branch team hunting for Bhatkal in Mangalore also arrested Ahmed Bawa Abubakar (33), Mohammed Ali Ahmed (44), Javed Mohammed Ali (19) and Syed Mohammed Naushad (25).

The Crime Branch claimed that 10 of the arrested accused transported explosives, ball bearings and shrapnel from Mangalore to Pune, and then to Surat. Choudhary reportedly rented a flat in Surat under the alias Yakub.

The police believe he also placed the unexploded bomb at Dilkhush Nagar in Hyderabad, while Anique placed the bomb that went off at Lumbini Park in Hyderabad and the bombs at five locations in Surat. Bhatkal himself planted the bomb that exploded at Gokul Chaat Bhandar in Hyderabad, the police claimed.

The police also say that the arrested men were planning a major terror attack in Mumbai on October 26.