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| People light candles to protest against terrorism at Zaveri Bazaar in Mumbai on Saturday. (Fotocorp) |
July 16: The sweep of the Mumbai blast investigation has taken in the entire country, with Calcutta emerging as one of the focal points.
Teams from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Maharashtra anti-terrorist squad (ATS) have fanned out to many states including Bengal, Gujarat, Karnataka, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. They are coordinating with local crime branch and state ATS officers.
An NIA team reached Calcutta today along with an officer of Delhi police’s special cell to hunt for “new local recruits” of the Indian Mujahideen. Its members claimed they were acting on specific intelligence inputs.
Asked whether any Indian Mujahideen operative had been questioned in Calcutta, a senior Mumbai police officer, however, said: “Not yet.”
An NIA official in Delhi said: “The Indian Mujahideen has recruited several youths in Bengal recently. We are working on specific inputs and that’s why a team left for Calcutta today. Aamir Reza Khan’s close links to the city is another important reason.”
But he confessed: “We are yet to zero in on Aamir’s current Calcutta contacts.”
Aamir, who grew up in Beniapukur, was once close to Aftab Ansari and is a fellow accused in the January 2002 attack on the American Center in Calcutta. In Dubai in 2003, he is said to have come in touch with Riyaz Bhatkal, who became head of the Indian Mujahideen when the outfit was born two years later.
Aamir is believed to be in Pakistan but is suspected to still wield influence on the Calcutta underworld.
The Indian Mujahideen has been linked to extortion calls made to four Calcutta businessmen in February last year. A suspected associate of Aamir allegedly called up the offices of two shoe companies in central Calcutta, the owner of a star hotel in south Calcutta and a Howrah businessman.
He threatened them with kidnapping if they refused to pay up sums ranging from Rs 20 crore to Rs 40 crore. The NIA took the probe over from Calcutta police last November.
“During our earlier visits to Calcutta, we found out that the calls were routed through Dubai,” the NIA official said.
“The counterfeit currency racket routed through Pakistan, Bangladesh and Bengal is one of the Indian Mujahideen’s funding sources.”
A senior officer of Delhi police’s special cell said that according to Calcutta police, some Students Islamic Movement of India members, who had gone underground after the outfit was banned in 2003, are now working for the Indian Mujahideen.
Intelligence sources in Calcutta also spoke of Khurram Khayam alias Abdulla alias Nata (which means “shorty”) of Mafidul Islam Lane in Beniapukur, who is said to have left India soon after the American Center attack in 2002.
They said Khurram had left for Karachi with Aamir. “He was in his early 30s then,” an officer said. He added that Khurram is suspected to be Aamir’s link with modules in India.
“We are not naming anyone in particular at this moment. We have kept all the avenues open and are in touch with the police in Bengal,” Maharashtra ATS chief Rakesh Maria told The Telegraph.
He did not rule out the involvement of the underworld, either. Sources in Delhi said Hindu Right-wing groups too were under the scanner.
Union home secretary R.K. Singh declined to comment till the investigations yielded a breakthrough.
Other suspects
The investigators are also trying to trace eight suspected Indian Mujahideen members from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, a village that almost always comes into the probe frame whenever a terror strike takes place in the country.
Inquiries are being made about Alamzeb Afridi alias Chikna from Ahmedabad. Karnataka is on the radar as Bhatkal, the Pakistan-based Indian Mujahideen chief, comes from the state and is believed to have at least three key aides there: Iqbal Bhatkal, Ahmed Yasin and Mudassir Yasin.
Yesterday, the NIA raided the home of Manzar Imamuddin Khan in Ranchi to look for clues.
Among the other suspected Indian Mujahideen operatives on the sleuths’ list are Thane resident Abdus Subhan Usman Qureishi, Pune’s Mohsin Chaudhary, and six men from Kerala.
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