Author: TNN
Publication: The Times of India
Date: June 2, 2008
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Kolkata_/Terrors_New_Tentacles/articleshow/3091533.cms
The morning after the May 13 serial blasts
in Jaipur, people were still picking up the pieces. Lives had been shattered,
and the Pink City was still reeling under the shock of the attack that claimed
80 lives. But inside police control rooms, sleuths were already picking up
a trail of terror.
Within days, a few things became clear. The
blasts were synchronized and masterminded with clinical precision. RDX may
have been used and like the blasts in UP courts, the explosives were stored
in cycles. "Each of these links point to the involvement of HuJI, the
Bangladeshi extremist outfit that has taken over from Lashkar-e-Taiba and
Jaish-e-Mohammed as India's biggest terror threat. HuJI operators use Kolkata
as their base and the porous border with Bangladesh to smuggle arms and explosives
into the country," said an intelligence source.
In fact, since 2005, the majority of terror
attacks in India - Mumbai train blasts, Mecca Mosque explosion, Sankat Mochan
attack - have reportedly been carried out by HuJI.
The connection has been evident for a long
time. On October 12, 2005, suicide bombers attacked the Hyderabad office of
the Special Task Force. Two months later, police arrested Kaleem, who revealed
that the operation had been executed by a Bangladeshi national. He said he
had been recruited and taken to Bangladesh for training. Later, a Bangladeshi
arrested from Murshidabad confessed he was a HuJI member and had been involved
in the attack.
These were the first tremors. Over the next
three years, HuJI emerged as the prime terror outfit involved in most jihadi
attacks in India. Most of the attacks were remote-controlled from Bangladesh.
As the probes progressed, sleuths found HuJI's terror network went far deeper
into India than thought previously. Their hand was seen in several other terrorist
strikes that were earlier attributed to other groups.
Delhi police, for instance, had claimed that
LeT was behind the serial blasts of October 2005 in the capital. But Jalaluddin,
alias Babubhai - a top HuJI operative in eastern India arrested in June 2007
- confessed that he had transported 20 kg of RDX to Delhi weeks before the
blast. The Mumbai train blast, too, was initially claimed to be the handiwork
of LeT. It was later revealed that HuJI had planned the attack.
In the face of this sustained terror campaign,
sleuths have been able to do little. Take the example of Abdul Rahaman, who
was 'arrested' in Delhi on May 22, 2008, and charged with involvement in the
Jaipur blasts. Babubhai revealed that as far back as 2004, Rahaman was transporting
explosives across the Bengal-Bangladesh border. A minor accomplice then, Rahaman
had been sent to the Biswa Ijtema at Tongi and attended a training camp in
Bangladesh before final training in Pakistan.
According to central intelligence sources,
by the time Rahaman returned from his Pakistan stint, he was an important
member of HuJI. Babubhai confessed that around one and a half years back,
Rahaman was sent to look for fresh recruits in Bangladesh. But around eight
months ago, he was nabbed in a raid by Bangladeshi intelligence agency DGFI.
Under pressure from India, he was allegedly handed over around two months
ago. This, in effect, quashes the Delhi Police's theory that he might have
been linked to the Jaipur blasts less than a month ago.
Indian agencies have also failed to secure
the custody of Abu Hamza, believed to be the second-in-command of HuJI in
India. A native of Hyderabad, he is a close aide of Shahid Bilal, one of HuJI's
masterminds in India. Police claim Hamza and Bilal planned the Hyderabad blasts
in 2007. Hamza is also wanted by Mumbai police for the Ghatkopar blasts in
2002. Central intelligence agencies claim he is in the custody of DGFI.
The Bangladesh government, however, denies
this. But sources in Bangladesh confirmed Hamza is now in custody. Indian
agencies have reportedly managed to lay their hands on one of his recent photographs.
For India, Hamza is the key links the other
HuJI big gun, Shahid Bilal, has allegedly been gunned down in Karachi in September
2007. Indian agencies are worried that Hamza, too, might be killed. "Hamza's
arrest would unearth how ISI is backing the militia. Unknown gunmen had killed
Bilal, probably his own men," said a senior intelligence officer.
