Date:26/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/26/stories/2008092661330100.htm

New Delhi

Blasts trail extended beyond Delhi

Devesh K. Pandey

NEW DELHI: Just a few days after the Delhi serial blasts on the evening of September 13, Mohammad Bashir alias Atif, the alleged Indian Mujahideen operation’s head, had contacted the terror module operating in Maharashtra to discuss plans for a series of 20 blasts in and around Nehru Place in the Capital, according to disclosures made to the Delhi police by suspects during sustained interrogation.

Suspected militant Mohammad Shakeel during his interrogation by the police has purportedly disclosed that Atif had confided in him about the plans to trigger more blasts in Delhi.

A study of the calls made through the mobile phones seized from Batla House in Jamia Nagar here from where the suspected militants were operating has revealed that Atif was in regular contact with Mohammad Saddik Shaikh, another alleged founder member of Indian Mujahideen. In fact, he had purportedly talked to Saddik on the mobile phone even on the day of the blasts in Delhi.

A Delhi Police team has joined in the interrogation of Saddik and four other suspected militants arrested by the Mumbai police on Wednesday and it has reportedly got some more leads into the channels through which the outfit had been receiving funds.

In a related development, suspected militants Zia ur Rehman, Mohammad Shakeel and Saqib Nissar who were arrested from Jamia Nagar by the South Delhi police have been handed over to the Special Cell. They are being interrogated to find out more about the other members of the outfit who are still at large.

The police are coming across more evidence establishing that Lashkar-e-Taiba provided active assistance to the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and to the Indian Mujahideen to carry out terror acts in different parts of the country.

A key LeT man from the Kashmir Valley, Manzoor Ahmad Chilloo, who was then pursuing a medical degree course in Pune had played a crucial role in striking an accord with SIMI’s Maharashtra wing.

He had allegedly set up a module that drew up an abortive plan to target the Bombay Stock Exchange in 2004. Chilloo had then fled to Chennai from where he went to Kashmir, where he was reportedly injured in an encounter with the security forces in 2006.