Altaf may hold key to stadium blasts

With the arrest of two alleged aides of Altaf alias Rakesh, said to be a link between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, the city police feel it is a matter of time before they receive a break into the twin blasts that rocked the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on April 17.

The police teams were keeping a watch over Altaf , and they arrested his agents Vinay Kumar, 30, of Pete Beedi, Ramanathapura of Hassan district and Devaiah, 33, of Virajpet Taluk in Kodagu, who are said to have close connections with subversive elements in Kerala.

“Only after Altaf’s arrest will we be able to say anything about their involvement with the twin blasts. This is a big blow to ISI-sponsored funding to Maoists in South India. The arrest of Altaf’s contacts has revealed that there is a growing nexus between ISI under world don Dawood Ibrahim and Maoists that is working to destabilise the country,” said Police commissioner Shankar M Bidari on Thursday.

Altaf, a native of Punaruru, S Kodi Kinnigolli near Mangalore, was running Times Bar at Chachi tower on Residency Road during 2003-06. Intelligence sources claimed that they had been on his trail since then as they were suspicions about his connections abroad. “But it was only a hunch. However, his hawala transactions were going on since then. But who his paymasters were and to whom he was delivering the money was not known. Only after he left India in 2006 and settled in Dubai, did our suspicion grow strong,” a senior intelligence officer said.