Author: Amita Verma
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: April 5, 2006
In a major breakthrough in investigations
in the Varanasi blast case, the special task force of the Uttar Pradesh police
on Wednesday arrested Waliullah, the man who had masterminded the entire operation
on March 7 that left 20 people dead and over 60 injured.
The STF also arrested five young militants
who were apparently waiting for orders to strike at various places.
Waliullah, aged around 32, belongs to the
Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI), a banned terrorist outfit that operates
from Bangladesh and is known for its links with Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). He
runs a madrasa at Mauama in Allahabad district of Uttar Pradesh.
The STF claimed that it had arrested Waliullah on Wednesday morning from near
Gosainganj, on the outskirts of Lucknow. (Waliullah, along with his three
brothers, had been arrested earlier in 2001 on charges of harbouring terrorists.)
Sources, however, claimed that Waliullah had
been picked up by the STF almost a week ago and his family members had even
filed a habeas corpus petition in a court in Allahabad. STF officials clarified
that Waliullah had gone underground to escape arrest and had deliberately
asked his family members to file the petition in order to intimidate the STF.
A huge cache of arms and ammunition has also
been recovered form his possession. These include one AK-47 rifle with cartridges
and magazine, three hand-grenades HE.36, 12 hand-grenades, six kg of RDX,
three kg of plastic explosive (PETN), 10 detonators and one pistol with six
live cartridges.
The STF has also picked up five boys - Mehqoob
Ali of West Bengal, Syed Shoab Hasan and Farhan, both of Lucknow, and Mohammed
Rizwan Siddiqui and Mohammed Shaad Ali, both of Jyotiba Phule Nagar - from
Sarojini Nagar locality on Wednesday morning on basis of information provided
by Waliullah.
"All these five boys are also linked
to HUJI and have recently returned from Pakistan where they attended a 28-day
arms training camp. They were waiting for further instructions from their
bosses in Bangladesh," IG (STF) Jagmohan Yadav told reporters at a press
conference.
According to the STF, Waliullah headed the
module responsible for the serial blasts in Varanasi and three young men from
Bangladesh - Basheer, Mustafeez and Zakaria - were involved in the execution
of the operation.
"These three men first met me at a religious
congregation in Mauama in Allahabad district on February 23 where they gave
me a message from Maulana Asad Ullah, who is the head of HUJI in Bangladesh.
We met again on March 3 at my house in Mauama where Basheer, Mustafeez and
Zakaria had come with two huge bags containing explosives. The three had studied
with me at Deoband and were known to me," Waliullah said in his statement.
According to him, all of them went to Allahabad
the next day, from where Basheer and Waliullah went to Varanasi while the
others went around various marketplaces. They all returned to Mauama the same
evening.
On March 6, Basheer, Mustafeez and Zakaria
again went to Allahabad and returned at night with new three pressure cookers.
At night, Waliullah helped them put the explosives in the cookers and fixed
the wires by removing the safety valve of the pressure cooker.
On the morning of March 7 - the day the blasts
took place in Varanasi - Basheer, Mustafeez and Zakaria boarded the Bundelkhand
Express at Phulpur railway station and arrived in Varanasi at around 8 am.
They put time devices on the cooker bombs and placed them at the earmarked
destinations.
When produced before the media, Waliullah
said that he had decided to turn into a "jihadi" while he was studying
at Deoband. "They would make us listen to the speeches of Jaish leaders
and give us books on the subjects. I got motivated to turn into a jihadi,"
he said.
Asked what prompted him to engineer blasts
in Varanasi, Waliullah said that the victimisation of Muslims, particularly
Muslim women, during the Babri Masjid demolition and during the riots in Gujarat
had made him swear revenge. "I decided to avenge the humiliation meted
out to my brothers and sisters in Ayodhya and Gujarat," he said.
Meanwhile, SSP (STF) S.K. Bhagat said that
they were now working towards the arrest of Basheer, Mustafeez and Zakaria
and hoped to make a breakthrough very soon.
