Stealthy ATS plays smart to nab Pune blast accused

It was a cloak and dagger mission for the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) from the beginning.

The arrest of Abdul Samad, 24, accused in the Pune German Bakery blast, had all the elements of a perfect crime thriller: a well-hatched plot, some old school sleuthing and the red herring.

The shroud of mystery over the way Samad was tracked and nabbed finally at the Mangalore airport is yet to lift completely.

The ATS, on its part, is uncharacteristically low-key. In fact, they have not even officially arrested Samad for his role in the bakery blast case; he has been arrested in a rather insignificant case of arms possession. His arrest in the Pune case will happen eventually, say ATS sources.

Explaining the strategy put in place to nab Samad, a senior officer said the needle of suspicion had zeroed in on Samad in March itself, a month after the blast.

The CCTV camera minutes before the incident had led the police to build their probe around three suspects, including Samad.

“However, when the ATS tried to locate him, it came to light that he had fled to Dubai,” the officer said. Left with the preliminary task of establishing the identity of Samad, the ATS summoned help from the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).

Soon, an undercover agent was on his way to Dubai. “The agent clicked Samad’s photo and sent it back to India. Investigators here matched the two photos and it was confirmed that the person in
Dubai was indeed Samad,” the officer said.

Verification done, it was important to issue look-out notice against Samad across all airports in India. “But the problem was, issuing the notice would involve risk of alerting Samad as well. Once issued, it would have been leaked to the media,” the officer said.

The ATS then issued a look-out notice against him in a lesser known case. “On March 25, look-out notice was issued against Samad in a 2009 case of illegal arms possession case registered by the Kalachowkie unit,” the officer said. The notice was then sent to all airports in the country, including the Mangalore airport.

Since the look-out notice was in a less important case, it did not attract much attention and went unnoticed. After this, a team of ATS officers was position at the Mangalore airport for over a month till Samad was finally arrested on Monday last week.