Trailing Yasin Bhatkal,Delhi Police put Mumbai flat under scanner

According to reports,Bhatkal was in Bihar for a while before coming to Delhi and then going to Mumbai where he has been living for the past few months.

The sources said Bhatkal was in Delhi till October last year,even a month after the Delhi High Court blast,which has raised suspicion over his possible involvement in the blast on September 7.

Meanwhile,the sources said Ahmad was arrested by the Mumbai ATS three days ago while his two sons were questioned. The sleuths also seized a few things,including blankets,a stove and pressure cookers,from the Byculla flat.

Ahmad,the police said,lived in Byculla West and had a leather factory in Madanpura. Earlier,he lived in Shaheen Bagh in south East Delhi where he befriended Bhatkal. Subsequently,on a work-related visit to Darbhanga he met him again. Sources said it was when Ahmad came back to Mumbai that he got a call from Bhatkal who asked him to arrange for a house in Byculla for him and two others.

The two others,the sources said,are Waqas and Tabrez,Bhatkal’s two Pakistani aides who were allegedly sent to India by the Bhatkal brothers — Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal — to carry out the serial blasts in Mumbai on July 13 2011 at Zaveri Bazaar,Opera House and Dadar.

Ahmad,who reportedly did not have knowledge of who Bhatkal actually was,arranged for the place. The house was arranged through a broker,Sultan Khan,an aged Pathan who showed the room to “four youths”. The sources said Waqas and Tabrez had left some money with the landlady as a security deposit and had told her that they would collect it on their return.

Khan said,recently,he found himself “waiting with the ATS officers at a busy Nagpada junction hoping that one of the two boys would make an appearance for their deposit. They might never come now,” says the man who has already been questioned for hours by both the agencies.

The house,now owned by a widow,was being rented for the past three years after she shifted to her mother’s residence. The owner who did not want her name published told The Indian Express,“There were four boys and I did not interact with anyone except the one in whose name the contract was signed,Waqas Saad. He had the hairstyle of Salman Khan from the movie Tere Naam and was approachable. The rest did not communicate. They left a day before Bakr-Eid in October and were never seen. The only two things I told them was to keep good behaviour as there are many women in our floor and I did not want any bad name. The address they gave as residence proof was a Delhi address. They told us that they were students and were also involved in the mobile phone and SIM card business. Since I did not understand I did not ask much.”

— with ENS inputs,Mumbai