The who and how of a suspected module

AHMEDABAD: Investigations by the Ahmedabad police indicate that the planning for blasts at Mumbai and Ahmedabad railway station may have been hatched in Aurangabad.

Highly placed sources in Gujarat police revealed on terms of anonymity that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba module which is responsible for Mumbai local train blasts had held a meeting during the Ikwan Conference held in Aurangabad two years ago. Mohammad Amir, Faiyaz Qazi, Zaibuddin Ansari, Akib Saiyad, Fahad and Kashmiri terrorist Aslam Kashmiri had participated in this meeting. According to police sources, Aslam Kashmiri had taken Fahad and two SIMI members to Kashmir for training. During the training, Fahad was shot dead in an encounter with the army personnel. Aslam had returned to Aurangabad after two months of the encounter incident.

Interestingly, this time around, he was not extended the same welcome as earlier. Faiyaz Ahmedad Qazi, resident of Bhid, Aurangabad and Zaibuddin Ansari suspected Aslam to be an operative of the Kashmir branch of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). They also suspected that Aslam had a hand in Fahad’s death in the encounter. Faiyaz and Zaibuddin apparently had even beaten up Aslam.

However, Aslam offered to take them to Kashmir to verify that he is indeed a hardcore Jehadi. But Faiyaz and Zaibuddin refused to go with him as they did not believe him and suspected that Aslam will take them to Kashmir and they will also meet the same fate as Fahad. But Aslam made them talk with some big bosses sitting in Kathmandu and convinced them that he is genuine.

Faiyaz, Zaibuddin, Aquib and other terrorists then visited Kathmandu during September and October, 2005. They met with a Pakistani terrorist identified as Junaid who trained them for a few months and later returned in early 2006. They had planted a bomb in the Karnavati Express on February 19, 2006 which went off at the Ahmedabad railway station.

It is believed that Faiyaz and Zaibuddin had returned to Aurangabad after carrying out the blast at Ahmedabad station. However, they got alerted after Mohammad Amir and Aquib Saiyad were arrested with the RDX cache from Aurangabad. They came to Mumbai after four days of the arrest of Amir and Aquib.