Between 1 militant and 5 prisoners

This despite the fact that the J&K police have, in their custody, Chand Khan in connection with the temple attack and had even brought him to the state to help re-construct the incident.

When asked about this, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) P P Pande had said: ‘‘J-K Police? They came here for Akshardham? Why?’’

One set of answers is emerging from Chand Khan. In an interview to The Indian Express, he said that he and two ‘‘fidayeens’’ came to Ahmedabad to carry out the strike and that there were no ‘‘local Gujarati contacts.’’

The Gujarat police, however, are confidently waving a list of five they have arrested. Significantly, two Muslim clerics on this list—Mufti Abdul Kayum Mansuri and Maulvi Abdullamian Yasinmian Saiyeed—were running a hospital owned by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation a month after the Akshardham attack last September. One of them also ran a relief camp for riot victims—a point his friends and family cite to claim his innocence.

Besides these two clerics, the DCB has arrested Salim Hanif Sheikh, a resident of Dariapur; Altaf Akbarhussain Malek and Adam Suleman Ajmeri from Shahpur. The DCB claims the five had ‘‘confessed’’ to having provided ‘‘local support’’ to the two Lashkar fidayeens involved in the attack.

But talking to The Indian Express from his J&K police lock-up, Chand Khan — who is believed to have escorted the two fidayeens from Kashmir to Gujarat — denies he received help from any one.

Besides this J&K-Gujarat discrepancy, consider these:

• Ahmedabad Police Commissioner K R Kaushik admitted that no handwriting experts have verified if the letters—found from the fidayeens—had been written by the arrested cleric, Mansuri, as police allege. Instead, a ballpoint pen used to write the letters was found in the temple premises.

• There is confusion over who supplied the weapons (two AK-56 rifles and hand grenades) to the fidayeens. While Kaushik says this was Ajmeri, Chand claims he arranged for them.

• Police said they picked up Ajmeri on August 28 but his wife, Nasimbanu, says he was arrested on August 9. ‘‘I have visited him at the crime branch four or five times. Though I asked, he did not tell me why they had arrested him.’’

A trained motor mechanic, Chand says he modified two Ambassador cars to ferry the weapons and the men. According to Chand, he and the two fidayeens travelled in the first car to Bareilly in UP (Chand’s hometown), via Delhi. The terrorists, Chand says, carried the weapons to the Akshardham temple in bedrolls they bought in Bareilly.

The Ambassador was abandoned in Bareilly and the fidayeens and Chand proceeded to Ahmedabad by train. Chand’s wife, who accompanied them from Kashmir along with their two-year-old daughter and stayed back at Bareilly, has apparently confirmed the J-K Police story. The abandoned Amabassador, J&K Police sources say, has been found and examined.

But in Ahmedabad, the terrorists hit a problem. Akshardham, it seems, wasn’t their initial target. It was CM Narendra Modi’s Gaurav Yatra. However, Chand and others had landed after the particular phase of the yatra they wanted to target was over. They finally zeroed in on Akshardham. An autorickshaw driver, Chand says, told them that Akshardham was ‘‘a big and important temple’’.

So they took a bus to Gandhinagar and then an auto for Akshardham. ‘‘It was Monday that day and the temple was closed for devotees.’’ Kaushik, however, says it was another terrorist, Ayub Khan, and Ajmeri who scouted the site along with the fidayeens.