The missing Link

Basheer, who would be in his mid-40s now, has a post-graduate diploma in aeronautical engineering, and had worked for a while at New Delhi8217;s Safarjung airport before he became an accused in terror attacks in Mumbai.

Intelligence sources say he had his arms and explosives training in the 1980s at a camp run by the Jamaat-e-Islami JEI of Pakistan in the North-West Frontier Province NWFP, and was an important mover of what is called the K-2 deal convergence of the Kashmir and Khalistan issues, which SIMI brokered with the Canada-based International Sikh Youth Federation ISYF.

In 1990, he became a whole time SIMI worker and, intelligence sources say, went to Pakistan more than once. By 1992 there was a warrant out for him in connection with a terror plot in Ahmedabad. The next year, soon after the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Basheer fled to Saudi Arabia. Though a key suspect, the extent of his actual role in that blast is still to be established.

But his pivotal role in the blasts at Mumbai8217;s Mulund in March 2003 came through after a key accused, Noor Mohammed Abdul Ansari, confessed it was Basheer who organised the funds and logistics for that attack. Basheer8217;s name had also figured as one of those who helped organise a band of Indian Islamic zealots based in the Gulf who went to Iraq to join jehadis fighting US forces.