Serial church blasts — IAF officer held for links with Pak’s ISI

Hasan Ur Zama, who is a member of Deendar Anjuman Channabasaveshwara Siddique, which was earlier identified as being behind the blasts, is alleged to have confessed that he had passed on information about the location of various vital installations in the country, defence establishments, railway bridges etc to his contacts in Pakistan, Bhaskar said.

Asked whether Hasan Ur Zama was directly involved in the blasts, Bhaskar said he had attended the meetings where the criminal conspiracy was hatched.When asked whether the Anjuman and the ISI had direct links, Dinakar responded: “These kind of activities require a lot of money. From where did the money come from? The head of Deendar (Sayed Zia-ul-Hasan) is staying in Pakistan and the arrested persons do not have that kind of money to sponsor these blasts. You can draw your own inference.”

The sect had no history of indulging in violence since its inception in 1924 and its original aim was to unite the Lingayats and Muslims. However, Bhaskar said, during the past one year, the sect’s objective had been to blast places of worship and to create enmity among various religious groups in the country.

The conspiracy was allegedly hatched at the annual Urs held at DeendarAnjuman Ashram in Asifnagar in Hyderabad in 1999. On the last day of theUrs, Syed Zia-Ul-Hasan, son of the founder of the sect, held a separate meeting with some of the close followers and announced the waging of jihad against India, according to the police.

Khalleq-ur-Zama of Nuzwid near Vijayawada was made the coordinator, the police have alleged. Several meetings were held in places like Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Bangalore, Bhaskar said.

S M Ibrahim, a member of the sect, was severely injured in a van explosionat Magadi Road, while returning with two others after planting a bomb at a church in Jagjivanramnagar. A mobile telephone and inflammatory pamphlets warning the Christian community were recovered from the blast site and it helped the investigation agency to nab the other accused.

With the arrest of the IAF officer, the number of arrests by the CoD in connection with the blasts has risen to 16.