Author: Smruti Koppikar
Publication: Outlook
Date: September 29, 2008
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080929&fname=Cover+Story&sid=4
Introduction: Totally devoted to his cause,
the Delhi terror mastermind had left work and family long ago
The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) in Mumbai and
the Delhi police may be hot on his trail but going by recent records, Abdus
Subhan Qureshi or Tauqeer may not really care. Tauqeer has all but severed
ties from his work and family life. His mother Zubaida says he hasn't been
in touch with her since 2001, and with his wife and two-and-a-half-year-old
daughter since 2006. The resignation letter he handed in to his last employer-a
data firm in Mumbai software zone seepz about three years ago-said he should
be relieved of his job as he wanted to concentrate on religious activities.
Investigators claim Tauqeer was aware of the plan and logistics behind the
recent blasts.
He has been charged with hacking the Internet
Protocol address of US national Ken Haywood in July to send the terror e-mail
warning of the Ahmedabad blasts. For the e-mail warning of the Delhi blasts,
he is said to have hacked into the wi-fi services of Kamran Power Pvt Ltd
in suburban Mumbai.
Tauqeer's name first blipped on the ATS radar
after the July 2006 Mumbai train blasts. Some of the accused revealed that
he had attended meetings with them in Ujjain before the serial explosions.
The ATS, claims advocate Mubin Solkar who is now advising the family, stormed
into his Mira Road house and confronted his family members, causing much trauma.
"Tauqeer was not shown as an accused in that case, yet this happened,"
says Solkar. "He hasn't come home since."
His name reappeared in April this year when
SIMI general secretary Safdar Nagori and his accomplices were nabbed in Madhya
Pradesh. Nagori told interrogators that he had met Tauqeer at a religious
meet in Delhi in 2000, and that the latter had attended a two-day simi meeting
in Karnataka two years back, and in Kerala in October 2007. Investigators
believe that if they get Tauqeer, they will have their man, but the evidence
against him is largely circumstantial or based on the confessional statements
of others.
The 36-year-old Tauqeer grew up in south Mumbai's
Muslim basti of Dongri. After schooling there, he acquired an engineering
diploma from a Navi Mumbai college and then did a certificate course in computer
programming. He then worked for a direct sales agent of a reputed IT company
and later joined a data firm. Even when he married in 1997, his first love
was simi, say family members. He has three children, the youngest under three
years of age. His sobbing mother Zubaida told the media: "Till the time
he was with us, he was a clean man...but if found guilty in court he should
be hanged in public so that we don't suffer anymore."
"Suffering" is a recurring theme
in Mira Road's Naya Nagar, a large complex of mainly Muslim middle- and upper-middle
class families. Residents have had to suffer barbs and ignominy after a series
of arrests for local crimes but particularly after three of the July train
blasts suspects were found to have lived here. Tauqeer's association has made
locals, particularly the clergy, take proactive steps to "keep an eye
on suspicious characters" around the complex.
