Author: Mateen Hafeez
Publication: The Times of India
Date: December 28, 2009
Indian Mujahideen's (IM) top operative Sadiq
Sheikh's confession on his alleged role in the July 11, 2006 serial Mumbai
train blasts has come as a huge embarrassment for the state anti-terrorism
squad (ATS). Two years ago, the ATS had chargesheeted 13 persons, but Sadiq
and other members of the IM module were not named as conspirators.
On Friday, after a news channel aired the
videotapes of Sadiq's confession in which he says that he and his associates
had purchased pressure cookers, placed bombs in them and planted them in trains,
the ATS was at pains to rubbish it, saying Sadiq was trying to mislead investigators.
"Our teams are questioning him and we cannot reveal information at this
juncture,''said acting ATS chief, additional director-general of police K
P Raghuvanshi. It was Raghuvanshi who had headed the 11/7 investigation as
ATS chief.He had then claimed that the blasts were carried out by Simi activists
and Pakistanis.
Sadiq first admitted his role in 11/7 in September
last year after he and 20 others were arrested by the Mumbai crime branch
which was investigating the cars stolen from Navi Mumbai and used in the 2008
blasts in Ahmedabad and the planting of bombs in Surat. DGP A N Roy had then
said that Sadiq's claims were an Al Qaida ploy to mislead investigators. TOI
had reported these developments extensively in its edition of October 15,
2008.
