Author: Praveen Swami
Publication: The Hindu
Date: September 15, 2008
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/15/stories/2008091555541200.htm
SIMI bomb-maker Subhan visited Azamgarh to
discuss Delhi bombing plan
Three men identified by two top SIMI operatives
Authorities feared their arrest might provoke
communal tension
Uttar Pradesh authorities stonewalled efforts
to arrest three Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) operatives who are
emerging as key suspects in Saturday's serial bombings in New Delhi, highly
placed police sources have told The Hindu.
Delhi Police sources said that the three Azamgarh-based
men - whose identities are being withheld by The Hindu to avoid compromising
the investigation - had been identified as core members of an Indian Mujahideen
team planning fresh attacks by two top terror commanders held in Uttar Pradesh
earlier this month.
Fearing that police action against the three
men might fuel tension in communally charged Azamgarh, police sources said,
Uttar Pradesh authorities refused to order their arrest or detention for questioning,
saying that interrogation reports from Gujarat and Rajasthan did not constitute
adequate grounds for such action.
According to a senior Delhi Police official,
the three men were identified by Lucknow-based businessman Shahbaz Husain,
who the Rajasthan Police says had overall charge of the terror cell which
carried out the Jaipur serial bombings in May, and Azamgarh cleric Abul Bashar
Qasmi, identified by the Gujarat Police as the controller of the murderous
serial bombings that tore Ahmedabad apart in July.
Both Qasmi and Husain told their interrogators
that the three Azamgarh men had met with Abdul Subhan Qureshi, a top Mumbai-based
SIMI operative, who is thought to have taught dozens of Indian Mujahideen
operatives their bomb-making skills and authored the organisation's e-mail
manifestos. Qureshi, they said, had visited Azamgarh at least twice in August,
soon after the Ahmedabad bombings, to discuss future attacks. New Delhi was
chosen as a target during these meetings.
U.P. networks
Evidence on the central role of SIMI's Uttar
Pradesh networks in the Indian Mujahideen's operations began to emerge in
the course of the investigation into the December 2007 synchronised bombing
of trial court buildings at Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi. Police learned
that Jaunpur-based Mohammad Khalid Mujahid and Tariq Kazmi, using explosives
provided by Jammu and Kashmir Harkat ul-Jihad-e-Islami commander Bashir Mir,
had coordinated the trial court bombings.
Mujahid and Kazmi were held, but their arrests
provoked widespread protests by local Muslims who claimed the two men were
innocent. As a result of the protests, Uttar Pradesh authorities ordered police
to ease back on operations targeting SIMI. Among those who thus escaped arrest
was Qasmi, an Azamgarh-based seminary student-turned-SIMI-activist, who the
Gujarat Police alleges was the central figure in the July 27 serial bombings
in Ahmedabad.
Qasmi's SIMI links been known to the Uttar
Pradesh police since 2006, when he figured in the interrogation of Mohtasin
Billa, an engineering student alleged to have facilitated that year's serial
bombings in Hyderabad. However, Qasmi was finally held only after the Gujarat
Police obtained a warrant for his arrest early this month.
Police officials believe earlier action could
have disrupted the networks which carried out the Ahmedabad attacks. Police
in Rajasthan, too, found that the networks responsible for executing the Jaipur
serial bombing stretched east to Uttar Pradesh. Late last month, investigators
arrested Shahbaz Husain, the businessman who, the Rajasthan Police say, was
one of the Indian Mujahideen's key organisers.
Husain, who owned two successful businesses
in Lucknow, is alleged to have helped organise the bombings in Jaipur and
Ahmedabad - and, with Qureshi, co-authored the e-mail claiming responsibility
for the attacks. Like Qasmi, Husain had long been known to the Uttar Pradesh
police - but this knowledge failed to provoke action.
Husain's name figured in the interrogation
of SIMI chief Safdar Nagori, who was arrested from a safehouse in Indore at
the end of March. Nagori identified Husain, who he referred to by the nickname
'Shaanu,' as the ranking head of the group's military operations. He told
police that Qureshi had trained dozens of Indian Mujahideen operatives on
Husain's orders.
Uttar Pradesh police determined that Husain
was indeed a SIMI member, who was recruited into the organisation while he
was a student of the Indian Institute of Mass Communications in New Delhi.
Before SIMI's proscription in 2001, police found, he briefly edited one of
its English-language magazines, Islamic Movement.
Interestingly, bomb-maker Qureshi worked at
the Delhi offices of SIMI during this time, after resigning a position at
the Mumbai-based computer firm Datamatics. However, Uttar Pradesh authorities
again held back on making an arrest, arguing that the evidence available was
inadequate to justify holding a prominent member of the community.
Rajasthan Police investigators, however, were
able to obtain an arrest warrant after several suspects held in Gujarat -
including top local SIMI organiser Sajid Mansoori - correctly identified photographs
of Husain, who they described as their ranking commander.
