Author: Praveen Swami
Publication: The Hindu
Date: Jul 15, 2006
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/07/15/stories/2006071521511400.htm
Introduction: Little is known about Rahil
Abdul Rehman Sheikh, believed to be the principal executor of the Mumbai bombings
Since at least February, police in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi have all
been attempting to locate the man alleged to be responsible for the second-largest
terror strike in Indian history.
* Sheikh funnelled funds to field units, and
ensured that fresh recruits travelled safely to camps in Pakistan
* He was a member of an ultra-conservative religious sect
* Sheikh and his accomplices shared an interest in campaigns for moral purification
and proselytisation
`RAHIL ABDUL REHMAN SHEIKH,' reads the text
on the top of the dossier on India's most wanted terrorist - the man believed
to be the principal executor of the Mumbai serial bombings, which claimed
200 lives. There is no photograph below it: for all of his adult life, Sheikh
refused to have one taken, on the ground that graven images were forbidden
by Islam.
A picture is not the only thing we do not
know about Sheikh's terror career. Since at least February, police in Gujarat,
Maharashtra and Delhi have all been attempting to locate the man alleged to
be responsible for the second-largest terror strike in Indian history. Indians
communications intelligence personnel intercepted conversations between Sheikh
and the Lashkar's overall military commander, Azam Cheema - but little else.
Operates under `Junaid'
Operating under the direct command of a Dhaka-based
Lashkar-e-Taiba commander code-named `Junaid' - about whom little is known
other than that he is a Pakistani national - Sheikh's principal tasks were
to funnel funds to field units, and ensure that fresh recruits could travel
safely to training camps in Pakistan. He travelled frequently to Dhaka to
meet Junaid.
Early this year, police in Gujarat discovered
Sheikh had organised the attempted bombing of an Ahmedabad-Mumbai train. Soon
afterwards, the Delhi Police determined that he had helped send Lashkar operatives
Mohammad Ali Chhipa and Feroze Ghaswala to Teheran, from where they had travelled
by road to the Lashkar's headquarters in Lahore. Similar tactics were used
to train several Lashkar terrorists arrested at Aurangabad in May.
Until his relationship with the Lashkar drew
the attention of India's police and intelligence services, Sheikh lived in
a one-room flat in a nondescript building near one of Mumbai's oldest landmarks
- the Shalimar Talkies, on Grant Road. Established in the 1970s, the movie
theatre drew top stars to premieres but, like the neighbourhood around it,
has been in decline for the last two decades.
Sheikh, though, appears to have rejected the
aggressive cosmopolitanism Mumbai prides itself on. He turned, in his late
teens, to the Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadis - an ultra-conservative religious sect which
urges its followers to model their lives on a literalist reading of the times
and life of the Prophet Muhammad. The Markazi Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadis, the sect's
central body in India, endorses the secular state - and condemns terrorism.
Receptive
Much of the Lashkar's cadre, though, has been
drawn from amongst the ranks of the organisation, and Sheikh proved receptive
to its call. According to authorities, Sheikh began working with the Students
Islamic Movement of India before its 1999 convention at Aurangabad, where
the organisation's linkages with the Lashkar first manifested themselves.
No evidence of actual membership, though, so far exists.
If Sheikh was indeed at that convention, many
of the Lashkar operatives he later worked with might well have first made
contact with him there. Many of the speeches delivered at the convention were
frankly inflammatory. "Islam is our nation, not India," thundered
Mohammad Amir Shakeel Ahmad, one of the 11 Aurangabad men arrested in May
for harbouring several kilograms of RDX in preparation for a massive bombing
in Gujarat.
Little is known about how Sheikh met the two
other men alleged to have played a core role in the Mumbai bombing, Beed-based
Zulfikar Fayyaz Qazi and Aurangabad resident Zabiuddin Ansari.
However, the three shared an interest in the
campaigns for moral purification and proselytisation organised by the Ahl-e-Hadis.
Sheikh, some say, attended a 2003 convention of the Ahl-e-Hadis in Srinagar.
Intelligence sources said Sheikh, Qazi and
Ansari are most likely hiding in Kathmandu, from where two Pakistani nationals
were arrested on June 12. Linked to the 2001 recovery of RDX from the home
of Pakistani diplomat Mohammad Arshad Cheema - who is also alleged to have
aided the hijackers of Indian Airlines flight 814 - the arrests have again
demonstrated the Lashkar's presence in Nepal.
