- Joined
- Dec 23, 2009
- Messages
- 1,041
- Likes
- 329
For the past six weeks, an obscure Darbhanga-based leather-business owner has been at the heart of India's hunt for the men who planted three improvised explosive devices that went off in a crowded Mumbai marketplace last summer, killing 26 and injuring at least 130.
Naquee Ahmad has helped the Intelligence Bureau and the Delhi Police build images of the two Pakistani nationals suspected to have planted the bombs, and sat with under-cover detectives staking out the apartment they last used.
For his contributions, Mr. Ahmad has been rewarded with arrest on charges of obtaining a mobile phone subscriber identity card using fake documents — a case a top Mumbai Police official told The Hindu was "totally without merit." His brother Rafi Ahmad has also been detained; their youngest sibling, Taquee, was questioned on Wednesday.
Mr. Ahmad's surreal fate, the outcome of a feud pitting Maharashtra's élite anti-terrorism unit, the ATS, against the Delhi Police and the Intelligence Bureau, demonstrates how India's national security effort is still mired in incompetence — three years after the tragic events of 26/11.
Key witness
Intelligence Bureau investigators first held Mr. Ahmad on December 9, following a series of arrests in New Delhi. The story he had to tell was consistent with what the authorities already knew: Mr. Ahmad was a key witness, not a suspect.
Late in 2008, an Arabic-language student, Gayur Ahmad Jamali, had fallen ill with a lung condition. Friends in Bihar introduced Mr. Jamali to an Ayurvedic physician called "Dr. Imran". The two men became friends of sorts: "Dr. Imran," Mr. Jamali told the police, would often advocate armed jihad as a means to retaliate against the oppression of Indian Muslims; he would argue otherwise.
"Dr. Imran," the Delhi Police believed, was none other than Muhammad Ahmad Zarar Siddibapa — a fugitive Indian Mujahideen commander also known by the alias "Yasin Bhatkal," and long sought by the authorities across the world for his alleged involvement in a series of bombings across India.
In November, Mr. Jamali had contacted Mr. Ahmad with a request: finding a room in Mumbai for his old doctor and two business associates. Mr. Ahmad, who often travelled to the city on business, helped as best he could. In November 2011, the three men made a Rs. 1,00,000-deposit with Razia Begum, to hire a one-room apartment at Byculla.
In testimony to the Delhi Police, which is available with The Hindu, Mr. Ahmad offered a wealth of detail on the two men he was introduced to as "Waqas" and "Tabrez." He accompanied the two terrorists to a local gym, and got them supervising work at a construction site. He also identified "Waqas" from closed-circuit camera footage taken outside a store in Jhaveri Bazaar.
Mr. Ahmad's questioning had all but ended by January 7 — when the Delhi Police arrived on his doorstep with one last request for help.
In New Delhi, highly-placed government sources told The Hindu, Intelligence Bureau Director Nehchal Sandhu had been personally supervising the monitoring of a phone investigators had established was being used by "Dr Imran." In an intercepted conversation in December, "Dr Imran" told his landlady that he wanted a refund of Rs. 84,000 that remained of the advance on the apartment at Byculla.
The Intelligence Bureau's Delhi centre faced technical problems in tracking the mobile phone, and so passed on its details to its station in Mumbai. Then, under circumstances that still haven't been clear, the top-secret number was passed on to the ATS.
Little understanding either the value or context of this information, the Maharashtra ATS promptly conducted a series of raids: Razia Begum was detained, the Byculla apartment searched, and Mr. Ahmad himself arrested in an effort to understand the case. Not surprisingly, the ATS action destroyed any hope that Mr. Siddibapa or his Pakistani aides might be found.
Maharashtra's ATS has long faced allegations of sharp practice, and worse. In 2008, for example, it failed to inform the Intelligence Bureau and other State police forces that it had held Mumbai criminal Afzal Usmani, who is being tried on charges of providing vehicles used to stage bombings in Ahmedabad in July 2008. The failure to share intelligence, Delhi Police sources have told The Hindu, facilitated a subsequent Indian Mujahideen strike in the capital that September.
Later, suspects held in the 2008 investigation Indian Mujahideen claimed, in videotaped testimony, to have bombed Mumbai's suburban train system two years earlier — an offence for which several other Maharashtra men are now being controversially tried.
In 2010, The Hindu revealed that the ATS had brought about the arrest of Mr. Siddibapa's brother, Muhammad Samad Zarar Siddibapa, on false allegations that he was involved in bombing the German Bakery in Pune.
"This is our country," Taquee Ahmad said on Wednesday, "and being an Indian it is our duty to serve our nation and bring the culprits who are enemies of our nation behind bars. I need you to tell me, is this the fruit of doing our duty as Indians"?
The Hindu : News / National : Feuding police arrest key witness in 13/7 Mumbai terror attacks; allow terrorists to escape
Naquee Ahmad has helped the Intelligence Bureau and the Delhi Police build images of the two Pakistani nationals suspected to have planted the bombs, and sat with under-cover detectives staking out the apartment they last used.
For his contributions, Mr. Ahmad has been rewarded with arrest on charges of obtaining a mobile phone subscriber identity card using fake documents — a case a top Mumbai Police official told The Hindu was "totally without merit." His brother Rafi Ahmad has also been detained; their youngest sibling, Taquee, was questioned on Wednesday.
Mr. Ahmad's surreal fate, the outcome of a feud pitting Maharashtra's élite anti-terrorism unit, the ATS, against the Delhi Police and the Intelligence Bureau, demonstrates how India's national security effort is still mired in incompetence — three years after the tragic events of 26/11.
Key witness
Intelligence Bureau investigators first held Mr. Ahmad on December 9, following a series of arrests in New Delhi. The story he had to tell was consistent with what the authorities already knew: Mr. Ahmad was a key witness, not a suspect.
Late in 2008, an Arabic-language student, Gayur Ahmad Jamali, had fallen ill with a lung condition. Friends in Bihar introduced Mr. Jamali to an Ayurvedic physician called "Dr. Imran". The two men became friends of sorts: "Dr. Imran," Mr. Jamali told the police, would often advocate armed jihad as a means to retaliate against the oppression of Indian Muslims; he would argue otherwise.
"Dr. Imran," the Delhi Police believed, was none other than Muhammad Ahmad Zarar Siddibapa — a fugitive Indian Mujahideen commander also known by the alias "Yasin Bhatkal," and long sought by the authorities across the world for his alleged involvement in a series of bombings across India.
In November, Mr. Jamali had contacted Mr. Ahmad with a request: finding a room in Mumbai for his old doctor and two business associates. Mr. Ahmad, who often travelled to the city on business, helped as best he could. In November 2011, the three men made a Rs. 1,00,000-deposit with Razia Begum, to hire a one-room apartment at Byculla.
In testimony to the Delhi Police, which is available with The Hindu, Mr. Ahmad offered a wealth of detail on the two men he was introduced to as "Waqas" and "Tabrez." He accompanied the two terrorists to a local gym, and got them supervising work at a construction site. He also identified "Waqas" from closed-circuit camera footage taken outside a store in Jhaveri Bazaar.
Mr. Ahmad's questioning had all but ended by January 7 — when the Delhi Police arrived on his doorstep with one last request for help.
In New Delhi, highly-placed government sources told The Hindu, Intelligence Bureau Director Nehchal Sandhu had been personally supervising the monitoring of a phone investigators had established was being used by "Dr Imran." In an intercepted conversation in December, "Dr Imran" told his landlady that he wanted a refund of Rs. 84,000 that remained of the advance on the apartment at Byculla.
The Intelligence Bureau's Delhi centre faced technical problems in tracking the mobile phone, and so passed on its details to its station in Mumbai. Then, under circumstances that still haven't been clear, the top-secret number was passed on to the ATS.
Little understanding either the value or context of this information, the Maharashtra ATS promptly conducted a series of raids: Razia Begum was detained, the Byculla apartment searched, and Mr. Ahmad himself arrested in an effort to understand the case. Not surprisingly, the ATS action destroyed any hope that Mr. Siddibapa or his Pakistani aides might be found.
Maharashtra's ATS has long faced allegations of sharp practice, and worse. In 2008, for example, it failed to inform the Intelligence Bureau and other State police forces that it had held Mumbai criminal Afzal Usmani, who is being tried on charges of providing vehicles used to stage bombings in Ahmedabad in July 2008. The failure to share intelligence, Delhi Police sources have told The Hindu, facilitated a subsequent Indian Mujahideen strike in the capital that September.
Later, suspects held in the 2008 investigation Indian Mujahideen claimed, in videotaped testimony, to have bombed Mumbai's suburban train system two years earlier — an offence for which several other Maharashtra men are now being controversially tried.
In 2010, The Hindu revealed that the ATS had brought about the arrest of Mr. Siddibapa's brother, Muhammad Samad Zarar Siddibapa, on false allegations that he was involved in bombing the German Bakery in Pune.
"This is our country," Taquee Ahmad said on Wednesday, "and being an Indian it is our duty to serve our nation and bring the culprits who are enemies of our nation behind bars. I need you to tell me, is this the fruit of doing our duty as Indians"?
The Hindu : News / National : Feuding police arrest key witness in 13/7 Mumbai terror attacks; allow terrorists to escape