Author: Rahul Tripathi
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 22, 2008
Introduction: Trio Admits Involvement in Delhi
& Ahd Blasts
With the arrest of three more Indian Mujahideen-SIMI
operatives for the September 13 Delhi blasts, the police said the group's
'mastermind', Atiq Ameen alias Bashir, had planned to deliver another deadly
blow by carrying out 20 bombings in the business district of Nehru Place.
The three were arrested a day after the Delhi
police's special cell claimed to have unravelled the IM-SIMI network, with
Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) leader Abu Al Kama-whose hand was also seen
in the October 29, 2005 Diwali-eve serial blasts-emerging as a key collaborator.
The linkages have led the police to say that the LeT provided help to SIMI-IM
in the UP court blasts. The role of HuJI in that attack is being probed as
well.
This three-outfit alliance is now seen to
be behind the Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Varanasi, Hyderabad and Faizabad blasts,
police said. Cooperation between LeT, HUJI and other jihadi groups is not
a new development as their leaders often share operatives. While, earlier,
SIMI provided foot soldiers, the need to "indigenize'' terrorism saw
the outfit moving to the forefront.
The interrogation of Zia, the son of Abdur
Rehman, caretaker of the shootout flat L-18 in Batla House area, Mohammed
Shakeel, an MA student living in Sangam Vihar and Saquib Nisar, a contact
between Zia and Atiq, has revealed that the IM leader was keen on striking
at Nehru Place soon. It seemed to underline the confidence of the IM-SIMI
group-reflected in the taunts in its emails-that it could avoid capture despite
arrests in the Ahmedabad bomb case.
The three said that they did not leave Delhi
after the blasts as Atiq convinced them to stay put. They further said Atiq
used to work out minute details of attacks, right from timing to sites. His
associates were given information only on a need-to-know basis.
