Date:17/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/17/stories/2008081757330100.htm

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Brain behind the Ahmedabad blasts held

Manas Dasgupta

Nine SIMI activists also in custody

Abul Bashar Qasmi

AHMEDABAD: With the arrest of Abul Bashar Qasmi, alleged mastermind behind the July 26 Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts, in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, the Gujarat police said they had unravelled the conspiracy that led to the bombings. With this, they hoped to unravel the mystery behind similar blasts in other parts of the country, particularly in Jaipur and Hyderabad and the Faizabad court-room blasts in Uttar Pradesh.

Announcing the breakthrough at a hurriedly-convened press conference here, Director-General of Police P.C. Pandey said Qasmi was arrested from a village in Azamgarh by a joint team of the U.P. and Gujarat police. He said it was perhaps the first time in the investigations into the recent serial bomb blasts that the police had been able to “reach right up to the mastermind.”

Before Qasmi’s arrest, nine persons were nabbed from Ahmedabad and Vadodara, all activists of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). “We now have the entire details of how and where the plans for the Ahmedabad blasts were chalked out, who were the people involved and how the entire plan was operationalised,” Mr. Pandey said. All the 10 were actively involved in the planning and execution of the Ahmedabad blasts.

Mr. Pandey claimed that the same group was involved in planting bombs in Surat. He did not agree that the Surat bombs were a mock show and claimed that the intention was to cause extensive damage in the diamond city; but the bombs did not explode. Instead of mechanical clocks, the group preferred timer chips in Surat.

Though a native of U.P., Qasmi was known to have spent plenty of time in Karnataka, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and several other places and could have had a hand in the terror operations in those areas, he said.