Author: PTI
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: July 31, 2006
URL: http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/31train1.htm?q=np&file=.htm
In April-May, the Delhi police and the Anti-Terrorism
Squad of the Mumbai police launched a joint operation.
The aim was to nab two of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba's
most important operators in India.
The operation failed.
Two months on, investigations into the Mumbai
blasts have revealed that if the two -- Rahil Sheikh and Zabiuddin Ansari
had been arrested then, the July 11 tragedy could have been averted.
Police sources said Rahil and Zabiuddin, who
are the prime suspects in the Mumbai blasts, are suspected to have moved to
Pakistan from where they are coordinating LeT activities in Mumbai.
Being a prime suspect in the October 2005
Delhi serial blasts, Rahil was already wanted by the Delhi Police. With his
LeT activities in Maharashtra coming under the scanner of the Anti Terrorism
Squad, the two forces worked out a secret plan to nab him, sources said.
Rahil was then hiding at a place in central
Mumbai. However, when the Delhi Police-ATS teams surrounded the house where
he was holed up, Rahil apparently realised the plan and jumped from the first
floor of his hideout, making good his escape, senior police officials said.
Similarly, when the ATS launched an operation
to trace an arms cache moving near Aurangabad in Marathwada region in May,
Zabiuddin Ansari alias Zaby was also accompanying the LeT operatives, sources
said.
However, as the police vehicles chased the
LeT vehicles, Zabiuddin allegedly escaped, and in the days ahead, moved to
Pakistan via Bangladesh, sources said.
Top intelligence officials said the arrest
of the two key LeT operatives would not only have helped police expose the
LeT network in Mumbai and parts of the state, but could have probably averted
the July 11 serial train blasts.
Meanwhile, Faiyaz Kagazi - a close aid of
Zabiuddin - whom the ATS was searching after the serial blasts, is also suspected
to have escaped to Pakistan, sources added.
It is suspected that after their escape to
Pakistan, Rahil and Zabiuddin planned the July 11 blasts to avenge the crackdown
by police and LeT members in Maharashtra.
