Author: Praveen Swami
Publication: The Hindu
Date: August 27, 2008
URL: http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/27/stories/2008082755641200.htm
Introduction: Shahbaz Husain is alleged to
be the overall commander of Jaipur, Ahmedabad attacks
Investigators believe a top Students Islamic
Movement of India operative arrested in Lucknow on Monday was the author of
a series of e-mail manifestos issued by the terror cell responsible for a
series of attacks across northern and western India.
Shahbaz Husain, a Lucknow-based businessman
held by the Rajasthan Police, is alleged to be the operational head of a SIMI-linked
group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen, which carried out in Faizabad,
Varanasi, Lucknow, Jaipur and Ahmedabad.
Husain, who moved to Lucknow two years ago,
and set up two successful businesses operating out of Maulvi Ganj, in the
Aminabad area. One, the Snazzy Computer Training Institute, offered basic
courses in information technology, and also acted as an agent for a nationwide
broadband Internet service provider. The other, Zyna Career Consultants, was
a human resource firm providing workers to companies in United Arab Emirates
and Saudi Arabia.
But the Uttar Pradesh police say Husain also
had a parallel life as a terror operative who built the complex, overlapping
networks that carried out the most sustained Islamist terror bombing offensive
India has ever seen.
According to police sources, he was recruited
into SIMI while he was studying at the Indian Institute of Mass Communications,
where he pursued a journalism diploma after obtaining a Bachelor of Sciences
Degree. Before SIMI's proscription in 2001, he briefly edited one of its English-language
magazines, Islamic Movement.
Police sources said he had been placed under
surveillance after the arrest of SIMI's former general secretary, Safdar Nagori,
at the end of March. During his interrogation, Nagori had identified Husain
- who he referred to by the nickname 'Shaanu'- as the ranking head of the
group's military operations.
Nagori also told police that top SIMI bomb-maker
Abdul Subhan Qureshi had held a series of training camps for operatives on
Husain's orders.
However, Uttar Pradesh authorities held back
on making an arrest, arguing that the evidence available was inadequate to
justify the arrest of a prominent member of the community. However, the Rajasthan
police obtained an arrest warrant, after several suspects held in Gujarat
- including top local SIMI organiser Sajid Mansoori - correctly identified
photographs of Husain, who they described as their ranking commander.
E-mail suspicions
Husain's public e-mail address, shahbaz_hindi@yahoo.com,
the Uttar Pradesh police found, bore some intriguing similarities with those
used by a terrorist cell calling itself the Indian Mujahideen.
Minutes before the bombing of three trial
court buildings in Uttar Pradesh in November, 2007, the Indian Mujahideen
issued a document claiming responsibility for the attack, using the e-mail
address guru_alHindi@yahoo.fr. The document was signed by an individual using
the pseudonym 'Guru al-Hindi.'
"Guru", in north Indian argot, is
used to refer not just to a religious leader, but to a boss or leader. 'Hindi',
in this context, signifies a person of Indian origin.
Just before the serial bombings in Jaipur
in May this year - an attack police suspect Husain directly organised - an
Indian Mujahideen manifesto was issued from a similar address, guru_alhindi_jaipur@yahoo.co.uk.
Again, the document was signed by 'Guru al-Hindi.'
Later, just before the serial bombings in
Ahmedabad last month, the Indian Mujahideen sent a third e-mail, this time
bearing the signatures of both 'al-Hindi' and a second operative calling himself
'al-Arbi', or 'the Arab'. Better written and designed than the earlier documents
- and in PDF, rather than the Microsoft Word format - the Ahmedabad e-mail,
was sent out from alarbi_gujarat@yahoo.com.
Finally, 'al-Arbi' sent out a fourth e-mail
last week, to decry the arrest of key suspects including Abdul Bashar Qureshi,
an Uttar Pradesh seminary student-turned-SIMI jihadist who was also held in
Uttar Pradesh last week.
Maharastra police sources said they believe
'al-Arbi' is in fact Abdul Subhan Qureshi, a top SIMI bomb-maker wanted for
a string of attacks since 2003.
Husain and Qureshi are emblematic of a new
generation of computer-literate SIMI operatives, many of whom joined the Islamist
group after experiencing religious discrimination while working at multinational
corporations. Earlier this year, police arrested Peedical Abdul Shibly and
Yahya Kamakutty, who had set up in Bangalore a jihad cell. It recruited at
least half a dozen information technology workers through a front organisation,
Sarani.