‘Abu Hamza’ rings a bell in Gujarat

The Gujarat police is still sporting a few red faces from its last big ‘‘disclosure’’ in the Akshardham case, when it ha...

The Gujarat police is still sporting a few red faces from its last big ‘‘disclosure’’ in the Akshardham case, when it had named five local Muslims in the case. However, this time they have jumped the gun all the way to London, for a man about whom they know nothing apart from his name.

The Crime Branch here went into overdrive when Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, a 46-year-old radical cleric who goes by the name Abu Hamza, was arrested in London on Thursday. Its officers went to town telling newspapers that they too were on the lookout for an Abu Hamza—wanted as an absconding POTA-accused in the Akshardham case and linked to four other important cases.

What they didn’t tell was that besides that name, the Crime Branch has nothing concrete on the Abu Hamza it wants: no physical description, and no connections by way of name of parents or relatives, no antecedents.

On the other hand, the little they do know doesn’t match with the London Abu Hamza. Mustafa, the man held in London, was born in Egypt, is one-eyed, and one of his arms, which is severed, ends in a steel hook. The Hamza the Crime Branch wants, according to the chargesheets, was born in Hyderabad, is believed to be in his 30s, and is based in Saudi Arabia.

But the obvious mismatches leave D.G. Vanzara, Additional Commissioner incharge of the Crime Branch, unfazed. He has strong reasons: ‘‘You know, these are very notorious elements. Today, he might have two hands and two eyes, and tomorrow he will turn out to have only one hand and be blind in one eye.’’

	The international man of mystery

	• London Abu Hamza was born in Egypt, is one-eyed and one of his arms, severed, ends in a hook • Gujarat’s most-wanted was born in Hyderabad, and based in Saudi Arabia. No known disabilities • Mumbai too wants an Abu Hamza, in connection with last year’s blasts. Is he one of the two, or someone third? No one knows

According to him, they are only following ‘‘set procedures and guidelines…All I can say is that the Abu Hamza we want is involved in the Akshardham case and some others.’’

And what would those procedures be? ‘‘Let us first confirm if anyone by the name of Abu Hamza has indeed been arrested in London,’’ says Vanzara. ‘‘Once that is done, we will try, through Interpol, to match his identity with that of the one we are looking for.’’

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Sources said the name first cropped up during interrogation of a witness in one of the five cases, and that now the Crime Branch is in the process of taking down a description from the witness. Apart from the Akshardham attack case, Abu Hamza is wanted by the Gujarat police in the 2002 Rath Yatra consipracy case, the serial tiffin bomb-blast case, a conspiracy to wage war against the nation (sending youths to Pakistan for training), and an illegal hawala racket.

Some news reports had said Abu Hamza had visited Ahmedabad to further terrorist activities, but Vanzara refuted them, saying the Crime Branch had ‘‘no such information’’.

There is another complication: according to a senior officer of a security agency, Mumbai police too is on the lookout for an Abu Hamza in connection with last year’s blasts in that city. Mumbai police has a photo of the Abu Hamza it wants but it doesn’t match the London Abu Hamza.