Author: Shishir Gupta, Hyderabad, Lucknow
Publication: The Indian Express
Dated: August 29, 2007
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/213080.html
Introduction: Shahid Bilal, prime accused
in Saturday's blasts, worked with this man who claims he delivered RDX nationwide,
even dropped 20 kg of it in Delhi weeks before the Sarojini Nagar blasts;
for 3 months, security agencies have been sitting on this startling confession
of Indian national Babu Bhai linked to Bangladesh's Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami.
Now Andhra police are waking up
Forty eight hours after the twin blasts in
Hyderabad, investigators are looking at questioning a 40-year-old born in
a village in West Bengal, who is now sitting in a Lucknow jail. Going by his
startling interrogation statement after he was arrested this June by the Uttar
Pradesh Special Task Force (STF), a copy of which has been obtained by The
Indian Express, Jalaluddin Mullah, alias Babu Bhai, has admitted to being
a key piece in a jigsaw of terror that stretches from Bangladesh to Pakistan,
goes via terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, touches New Delhi, Mumbai,
Varanasi, Bijnore and Unnao in UP and now even Hyderabad.
Not only has Babu Bhai confessed to making
several deliveries of explosives, including RDX, across the country since
2004, he has claimed, according to his interrogation, of having delivered
20 kg of RDX to an operative in New Delhi barely weeks before the Sarojini
Nagar blasts that killed 59 people.
A key member of the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami
(HUJI), Babu Bhai's claims have so far been gathering dust but now are the
subject of renewed investigation. Top Andhra police officials have confirmed
to The Indian Express that a police team is expected to land in Lucknow this
week to take Babu Bhai into custody.
If the police want him to help them join the
dots, they could start with his 17-page statement itself. For, the fact is
that both Babu Bhai and Shahid Bilal, the prime accused in Hyderabad's twin
blasts, were working for Munir-ul-Islam alias Assadullah, a HUJI commander
in Dhaka and who runs a madrasa there. Significantly, Assadullah's name also
figures in the interrogation of Waliullah, a Phoolpur cleric with HUJI linkages,
one of the main accused in the March 2006 Sankatmochan blasts in Varanasi.
Says Ajit Doval, former Director, Intelligence
Bureau: "The assault from the east and entrenchment in the hinterland
are two disturbing trends on the terrorist front. What is lesser known and
more serious is HUJI's intimate and old Al-Qaeda linkages. Now that Al Qaeda
the world over is in the business of outsourcing terror through franchise,
this organisation should figure high on the security radar."
Consider the following revelations Babu Bhai
made about his "deliveries" of explosives and training of terrorists:
l 40 kg of RDX in Varanasi in early 2004:
He carried this on board Jammu Tawi Express from Howrah to Varanasi and gave
it to one "Raju" the next day outside the station. STF verified
his claim that he stayed in the name of Amanullah Mandal (name on his fake
driving licence) in Hotel Sagar at Gowdhulia chowk.
Investigators now believe that this RDX may
have been used in the February 2005 blasts at Dashashwamegha Ghat, which killed
nine people.
o 40 kg of RDX in Mumbai in June-July 2004:
Babu Bhai claims he delivered this to one "Ravi" outside the Victoria
Terminus station. Although Babu Bhai has described "Ravi", he is
untraced. Agencies are not clear whether this explosive was used in Mumbai
train blasts of 2006.
o 20 kg of explosives in Delhi in August-September
2005, weeks before the Sarojini Nagar blasts: The timing is critical as this
was weeks before October 29, 2005 blasts in Delhi. Babu Bhai's report says
that 10 days before the beginning of Ramzaan (August-September 2005) he delivered
20 kg of RDX to one "Guru alias Rocky" outside Jama Masjid Gate
No 1. He adds he stayed with his friend Qadir in Turkman gate for two days
before returning to Kolkata.
o He sent at least 23 youths, from Bijnore,
Unnao and 24 Parganas in West Bengal, for arms and explosive training to Pakistan
via Bangladesh.
Babu Bhai claims he received weapons and explosive
training in Kotli in PoK in April-May 2001 along with jihadis from Malaysia,
Thailand, South Africa and Pakistan.
His interrogation report reveals that Babu
Bhai was inducted into terror by Asif Raza Khan, the main accused in Partho
Burman kidnapping case in Kolkata and later killed by Gujarat police in 2001.
Before the UP STF picked him, Babu Bhai was being handled by his younger brother
Amir Raza Khan, who is now in Pakistan; Qamar, a Bihari settled in Dhaka's
Mirpur Colony, and the younger brother of a Bangladesh minister by the name
of Miraj.
What this shows, experts say, is a new network
of terror where the brains trust may have links across the border, in Pakistan
and Bangaldesh, but where locals are increasingly being used to plan, plot
and conduct the strikes.
