Gujarat cop story weakens: Held men never met each other

To establish Chand accompanied the fidayeen to Ahmedabad, pictures of the two fidayeen, brought by the Gujarat police, were jumbled with pictures of killed militants. Chand was then told to spot the two men he claimed to have accompanied.

‘‘After a while he took out two pictures and named them as Abdullah and Shakeel. He was dead right, he had picked the photographs of the two fidayeen,’’ the sources said.

Officers then asked him to describe the clothes that the fidayeen had been wearing. Chand told them that one wore a red shirt while the other was in a grey T-shirt and both had sports shoes on. This, the sources said, was also correct.

Officers of the Gujarat police then grilled Chand, asking him questions on minute details and all his answers were spontaneous. The Gujarat team, the sources said, had plans to return on Monday and wanted to take along Chand. But the team has now decided to stay put in Srinagar for some more days.

After four days of questioning, the Gujarat police are yet to establish any link between the five men, held under POTA from the old city in Ahmedabad, and the militants who were responsible. Confirming that they had jointly interrogated Chand Khan and the men brought by the Gujarat police, Inspector General of Police K Rajendra said: ‘‘We don’t have an iota of doubt it was Chand Khan who accompanied the two fidayeen. Every detail of his (Chand Khan’s) story has turned out to be true.’’

‘‘But for the sake of fairness and transparency, we want the Gujarat police team to investigate the case for as many days as they want.’’ The Gujarat police claimed recently that they had cracked the Akshardham case after rounding up five men — Salim Hanif Sheikh, Altaf Akbar Hussain Malik and Adam Suleman Ajmeri and two clerics Mufti Abdul Kayum Mansuri and Maulvi Abdullahmian Yasinmian Sayeed who ran riot relief camps — from Shahpur and Dariyapur localities of old Ahmedabad.