Author:
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 30, 2003
In a startling development, the
Ahmedabad city crime branch arrested five people, claimed to be conspirators
and executors of the terror attack on the Akshardham temple on September
24 last year which killed persons.
Two of those arrested are Muslim
clerics,who ran relief camps in Ahmedabad after the riots, and it is believed
that they were picked up much earlier the week even though the police claimed
that they were picked up on Thursday night.
Their investigations have revealed
a new dimension to the case: That an autorickshaw was also used to transport
two of the accomplices to Akshardham, besides the cab which brought the
slain terrorists. It also reveals a different identity of one of the slain
terrorist identified earlier as Mohammad Amjad, who is now said to be Mohammad
Faroukh of Rawalpindi.
This development closely follows
the transfer of the case be from the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) to the
city crime branch by the director general of police Chakravarthi on Thursday
evening. The crime branch also revealed that before the reconnaissance
mission on Akshardham, the group also explored the possibility of an attack
on the BJP headquarters in Khanpur, the VHP headquarters in Paldi and also
the state assembly building and secretariat in Gandhinagar.
They settled for Akshardham, because
it was a crowded venue and a soft target". The terrorists, armed with AK
56 assault rifles, explosives and rations, entered the temple complex right
opposite the VIP enclave in Gandhinagar and started a gunbattle that claimed
33 lives, and lasted until they were finally killed by NSG commandos.
Police commissioner KR Kaushik told
press conference that the crime branch picked up Salim Hanif Shaikh, a
resident of Dariapur who now works in Riyadh, late on Thursday evening,
which led to the arrest of four others through the night. He said Salim
provided logistic support to the two terrorists who had come from Pakistan.
"Preliminary interrogation and investigation
reports suggest that the attack had been a joint operation of Jaishe-Mohammad
(JeM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) with support from the ISI. The plot had
been hatched in Saudi Arabia and discussed at Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh)
after last year's communal violence," asserted Kaushik.
Shaikh's confessions about the terrorattack
led to the arrest of four others Altaf Akbar Hussain Malek, who also works
in Riyadh, Aadam Suleman Ajmeri of Shahpur, Mufti Abdulqayyum Mansuri and
Maulana Abdullamiya Sayyed of Dariapur. Crime branch officials say that
the threat letters recovered from the terrorists, which carried the name
of the organisation "Tehreek-e-Kasas (Movement for Revenge) were written
Mufti Mansuri and drafted by Maulana Abdullamiya Sayyed. The clerics, who
ran riot-relief camps in Bawahir Hall Dariapur, have allegedly confessed
that the arms used by the terrorists were delivered to them a day before
the attack.
According to the joint commissioner
of police (crime) PP Pandey, "Salim has confessed that since the riots
the terrorist attack in Gujarat had been planned Abutallah (linked with
JeM) a resident Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, Abu Sifiyan and Abu Hamza of LeT
in Riyadh." The police say that the conspirators got in touch with Ahmedabad's
Salim and Rashid Suleman Ajmeri, in Riyadh. Rashid persuaded his brother
Aadam, Shahpur to get his house in Dudheshwar vacated for sheltering the
terrorists.
A fortnight before the attack the
terror-network was briefed by Ayub Khan in Hyderabad. The terrorists reached
Gujarat from Pakistan a week before September 24 and stayed in Rashid's
house. Abullasha Mazhar and Abu Hujefa of Karachi provided logistic support,
while Yassir, Faroukh, Ayyub and Adam surveyed the possible targets. Two
recce missions were conducted September 23 before they set out for their
mission.
