Blast into the past

The recent Hyderabad Mecca Masjid blast and the Gorakhpur blasts bring into focus the other explosions that have taken place in various parts of the country in the past four years. While headway has been made in some cases, others are dying out for want of leads. Here’s a status report on the progress in eight such cases.

ATTARI
February 18, 2007
As many as 68 people died, 13 were injured and 19 victims are still unidentified in the blasts that rocked the Attari Special, Samjhauta Express, from Delhi to Attari near Diwana in Panipat.
Haryana police identified Abhinandan Bag Centre in Indore as the shop from where six suitcases—used in the blasts—were bought on February 14. Shop-owner Huzaifa Halim Ali was arrested as were tailors Faqruddin and Iqbal Hussain who had stitched the bags. The three were brought to Panipat, but later released and the case against them dismissed. Bangladesh-based HuJI and SIMI remain the prime suspects, but Haryana police has failed to make any headway. Till date, there have been no arrests and the exact sequence of events is also a mystery.

Malegaon,
Maharashtra
September 8, 2006
Thirty-one people died and 312 were injured in four blasts, of which three were in the Hamidiya Masjid and Bara Kabrastan, and the fourth at Mushawart Chowk.
The chargesheet filed by the state Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on December 22 last year is clear about the motive but fails to establish the identities of two Pakistanis involved. The probe has also failed to establish the identities of the two men who bought the bicycles used to plant the bombs, though the chargesheet says the prime conspirators and the planters have been arrested.
The chargesheet does not say how the explosives used in the blasts reached Malegaon from Mumbai. It says the explosives were brought to Mumbai in the third week of July by SIMI activists Mohammed Ali Sheikh and Asif Khan and were handed to prime accused Shabbir Ahmed Masiullah. But it does not explain where Sheikh and Khan got the explosives from, or why the police did not know about the involvement of Masiullah, who had been arrested by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch on August 11, till three months after his arrest. All the nine arrested accused, booked under MCOCA, are in judicial custody.

Varanasi
March 7, 2006
Fourteen people were killed in the twin blasts at Sankatmochan temple and railway station in Varanasi.
Bangladesh terror group HuJI is suspected to be behind the blasts. Within a month of the blasts, the UP Special Task force arrested six persons, including the alleged mastermind, Walliullah. The other five were Maqbooque Ali Mandal, Syed Shoaib Hasan, Mohammed Rizwan Siddiquee, Farhan and Md Shad Ali.
Walliullah—area commander of HuJi—reportedly provided shelter to militants tasked with terror operation in the country. Earlier, Walliullah had been booked under sections 121-A/122/124/-A of IPC in a case lodged with Phoolpur police station in 2001. Walliullah had come in touch with the terror group in 2002 as a student of Deoband. Walliullah had revealed the involvement of three Bangladesh nationals Bashir, Mustafeez and Zakaria, who had arrived in Phoolpur from Bangladesh five days before the blast and are still absconding. The case has been transferred to a Ghaziabad court.

Bangalore
December 28, 2005
A retired IIT Delhi mathematics professor was killed in the attack on scientists at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
No direct arrests have been made till date. According to the Bangalore police, the attack was carried out by terrorists based in Bangladesh with links to HuJI and JeM and was funded and supported by the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The Bangalore police through IB inputs, interrogation reports of terrorists arrested in Hyderabad, and investigations have surmised that Shahid, a Hyderabad native, currently being linked to the Hyderabad Mecca Masjids blast, based in Bangladesh and linked to the HuJI and JeM played a key role in the IISc attack.
While seven people have been arrested, none of them have been linked to the attack. The arrested include Abdul Rehman, south India head of the Lashkar-e-Toiba; Chand Pasha, Mehboob Ibrahim Sab Chopdar, Ashraf Pasha, Mohammed Irfan, Nazmuddin alias Munna and Noorullah Khan.

Delhi
October 29, 2005
As many as 67 persons died and 200 were injured in three powerful blasts in Sarojini Nagar and Paharganj markets and in a bus in Govindpuri just before Diwali.
Though the Special Cell of Delhi Police has arrested five terrorists who funded and supervised the blasts, the real perpetrators are still at large. The Cell has filed four chargesheets against the five accused and is likely to frame charges at the next hearing on May 26. The accused—Ghulam Ahmad Dar, Mohammad Hussain Fazli, Mohammad Rafiq Shah, Ghulam Ahmad Khan and Farooq Ahmad Battoo—have reportedly applied for bail, which will also be considered on May 26. While the Delhi police killed one Abu-Huzefa in an encounter in Srinagar, the alleged conspirator Abu Al-Qama of Lashkar-e-Toiba is still on the run, as are the persons who planted the RDX. Later, officials admitted that these men could have fled the country.

Mumbai
1. Train blasts
July 11, 2006
Between 6.23 pm and 6.28 pm, seven explosions rocked the first class coaches of suburban trains, killing 187 and injuring 817.
A chargesheet has been filed against 13 arrested persons and 15 at large, 10 of whom are Pakistani nationals. The 13 accused are in judicial custody and have been booked under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.
The state Anti-Terrorism Squad claims in its 10,000-page chargesheet filed on November 29 last year that the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan by Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Azam Chima alias Babaji and city-based Faizal Ata-ur Rehman Sheikh and executed through a module of operatives involving locals and Pakistani nationals. The ATS claims that the RDX for this purpose was smuggled in by a Pakistani national, Ehsanullah, via the Bangladesh border and that he brought with him five Pakistanis. These claims are unsubstantiated as none of the accused Pakistani nationals have been arrested. The ATS, which had earlier claimed that the explosive devices were hidden inside pressure cookers and planted in the bogies, has failed to find any evidence.

2. Twin blasts at
Gateway of India and
Zaveri bazaar
August 25, 2003
Explosions in two taxis at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazar killed 53 persons and injured 150.
Investigations were immediately transferred to a team headed by Joint Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria and a week later Sayed Mohammed Hanif, his wife Fahimida and two others were arrested. Two others were arrested later. The trial continues and all the accused are in judicial custody.
The accused told the police that they had formed the “Gujarat Muslim Revenge Force” and were in Mumbai to seek revenge for the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. After the arrests, police seized 25 kg of explosives, timer devices and wires from Hanif’s residence.

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3. Mulund train blast
March 13, 2003
Twelve persons died and more than 70 were injured in an explosion in the ladies’ compartment of a Karjat-bound local train as it arrived at Mulund station.
For more than two months, the police were clueless. It was after another blast on a city bus at Ghatkopar on July 29 the same year that the police identified the persons involved and the key perpetrators were revealed after Hanif’s arrest in the Gateway of India blast. The arrest of 17 persons brought out the involvement of educated people in terror activities for the first time. Trial in the case is pending.
—Neeraj Chauhan, Stavan Desai,
Aman Sharma, Sanjay
Singh, Johnson TA