Author: K. Srinivas Reddy
Publication: The Hindu
Date: February 2, 2008
URL: http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/02/stories/2008020256001200.htm
Stolen motorcycles were to be used as bombs
in the operation; reconnaissance conducted on beaches
* Foreign tourists, possible target * Details
of operation not disclosed
Islamic fundamentalists planned serial blasts
on the Goa beaches, interrogation of Hyderabad resident Raziuddin Nasir has
revealed.
The arrival of droves of foreign tourists,
especially Israelis, seemed to have put the beaches on the cross-wires of
Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jihadi-al-Islami operatives working within the
country and across the borders. Motorcycles allegedly stolen by Nasir and
Asaduddin Abubakar of Karnataka were meant to be used as bombs on a few select
beaches.
Nasir, who is being grilled by intelligence
agencies and the police departments of more than 12 States in Karnataka, has
disclosed that the purpose of his visit to Goa immediately after the twin
blasts in Hyderabad on August 25, was to identify beaches for organising serial
blasts.
The 22-year-old engineering college drop-out,
who had undergone training in a Pakistan-based HuJI cell, had selected Goa,
as it was attracting hundreds of tourists from Israel. Though Nasir had not
yet disclosed how he planned to organise the blasts, his matter-of-fact confession
that they were planned in four beach stretches of Goa stunned interrogators.
The Islamist terror modules had earlier turned
bicycles into Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in the Varanasi, Lucknow
and Gorakhpur blasts. "Now motorcycles seemed to be the in-thing,"
a police officer remarked.
The Davangere police had seized 11 stolen
motorcycles at the instance of Nasir and his accomplice Abubakar. Though the
duo claimed to have stolen the motorcycles for fun, the fact that they did
not abandon or sell them surprised the sleuths.
Prize catch
Nasir, a native of Hyderabad, is being considered
a prize catch for the Indian police. He, however, has not yet spilled the
beans on who had fabricated the IEDs or how the explosives were to be supplied
to him. All he has disclosed was that he had "sought" 50 kg of explosives
from his handlers.
Intelligence agencies, piecing stray pieces
of information together now realise that they had an input based on telephonic
intercepts that Nasir's mentor Shahid alias 'Bilal' had instructed him to
go to Kathmandu saying that "everything is arranged."
Fiat disregarded
But, Nasir disregarded the fiat and stayed
put in Hyderabad, ostensibly to undergo a root canal treatment in a dental
hospital and to also get his eyes checked.
Even when he was undergoing training in a
terror camp across the border, Indian intelligence agencies had intercepted
a telephone call in which the subject of communication appeared to be Nasir.
The lanky youngster with a serious eye problem had lost his spectacles and
was finding it difficult to move without them. The caller was requesting the
person on the other line to arrange for sending a pair of spectacles. Now,
intelligence agencies believe that it was meant for Nasir.
His repeated assertion that Bilal was 'neutralised'
by his operatives in Karachi in August 2007 has made the sleuths wonder whether
it was a red herring thrown by Bilal handlers.
Yet, if one were to go by Nisar's version,
Bilal was growing too big for his boots by taking decisions on his own. Bilal's
penchant to depend more on Bangladesh HuJI modules for organising subversive
activities in India was not liked by his Pakistan handlers.
Particularly, the arrest of a HuJI activist
by Indian security agencies on the India-Bangladesh border last year was viewed
as a 'terribly unprofessional act' by Bilal's handlers.
