The year the city woke up

It came out in October that IM had set up its control room at “Ashoka Mews”, a residential society in Kondhwa area. Police probe had revealed that an IM terror module based in Mangalore had sent a consignment of explosives to Pune. Based on this information, the police arrested four suspects from Kondhwa and Kasba Peth in the city.

These included people who worked for prominent IT companies in the city. The arrest of Mohammed Mansoor Peerbhoy (31), former principal software engineer with Yahoo India, held by the crime branch of the city police for sending terror e-mails on behalf of IM, came as a shock. He later turned approver and said he would bare the role of 10 of his associates in a series of blasts across the country since 2005.

The eight accused from Pune were charged with running an organised crime syndicate, participating in terrorist activities by sending terror threat mails, making bombs, planting and detonating them.

The other SIMI activists from the city arrested were Ayaz Yusuf Khan (24), law student Nadim Shaikh (27) and law graduate Bilal Gulam Rasool Kagzi (25) for their involvement in the blasts in Gujarat. Dr Mohammed Salim Honali, a dentist, was arrested by the Gujarat ATS for his alleged links to the Ahmedabad blasts. Honali had taught at the MA Rangoonwala College of Dental Sciences at the Azam Campus in Pune.

There also arose fear that Pune may emerge as a future target for terrorist attacks, but city police commissioner Satyapal Singh ruled it out. “We have not received any inputs indicating that Pune is under threat,” he said. He also chalked out plans to engage college students to act as the eyes and ears of the under-strength police through a pet project of his called Mission Mrutunjay.

Malegaon links
“Cat is out of the basket… Singh has sung… We are on the radar of ATS… Change the SIM card.” These SMSes sent by Lt Col Shrikant Purohit to Major (Retd) Ramesh Upadhyay led to Purohit’s arrest on November 4. Thus began the trail that led to a series of arrests of Malegaon blast suspects. What has come as a rude shock is the number of city links of those arrested.
Pune got a first-hand dose of what was to follow on November 19 when Purohit was produced in the Pune district court. The next day, Sameer Kulkarni, another Malegaon accused and a resident of Nigdi, Pune was produced in the Khadki court.
The city also witnessed growth of a homegrown organisation, Abhinav Bharat, in such proportions that it threatened to dwarf other saffron units. Himani Savarkar, the president of Abhinav Bharat and president of Hindu Mahasabha, declared that the organisation would defend all the accused in the Malegaon case.
The ATS also launched a probe against Shyam Apte (70), a resident of Nav Sahyadri society in Kothrud. The probe centred around the premise that he provided funds to Dayanand Pandey, a suspect in the Malegaon blast case and whether Apte had entered into a criminal conspiracy with Purohit to eliminate top RSS leaders. Late ATS chief Hemant Karkare, too had questioned Apte.
Another name that has emerged from Pune, linked to the Malegaon blasts is of Dr Sharad Kunte, a chemistry professor from Nowrosjee Wadia College. Malegaon blasts accused Rakesh Dhawade, in a written statement to the Jalna police, named Kunte and another Prof Deo to coordinate a training session at the foothills of Sinhagad Road.
In the midst of all this came the Mumbai terror strike on November 26. It claimed lives of three bravehearts from the state police. One of them, additional commissioner of police Ashok Kamte, was from Pune. The other from the city to lose life was Kaizad Kamdin, all of 28 years and working as a chef at Taj Hotel. The terror saga left an indelible imprint on Pune. Commuting between the two cities almost came to a standstill, stories of victims with city links began to emerge.
Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan was one such — he was an alumni of the National Defence Academy.