Author: Sourav Mukherjee
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 17, 2006
Ashraf Kashmiri, the man credited with setting
up the Aurangabad module of Lashkar-e-Taiba that is believed to have played
a key role in the Mumbai serial blasts, had been hiding in a Surat madrasa
for at least five years till 2005.
"Kashmiri had set up LeT's Aurangabad
module in five months. He stayed in Gujarat for more than five years, he could
have set up a similar terror network here too," said a Gujarat police
official. Kashmiri is now on the most wanted list of the Gujarat and the Maharashtra
police.
Sleuths are without a clue about his whereabouts
since '05, but would love to lay their hands on him to draw out details of
the other terror modules or sleeper cells.
The Aurangabad module was busted by the Mumbai
anti-terrorist squad in May. Several persons were held and a cache of arms,
including 43 kg of RDX, was seized. Two members, Akib Sayyed and Amir Shaikh,
had confessed how two other members had made and planted the bomb on the Mumbai
Ahmedabad Karnavati Express that exploded at Ahmedabad station on February
19. They had said that Sayyad Zaibuddin, a key suspect in the Mumbai serial
blasts, had made the bomb and Mohammad Faiyaz had planted it.
