The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Police confirm Nasir’s LeT links

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Tuesday, Jan 29, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Police confirm Nasir’s LeT links

K.V. Subramanya

He was arrested by Davangere police on charges of vehicle theft

Nasir is from the Charminar area in Hyderabad
He has been living in Karnataka since
August 2007

BANGALORE: Investigations by the Karnataka police have confirmed that Ziyauddin Nasir (22), who was arrested by the Davangere district police recently on charges of vehicle theft, has links with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and he was trained for fabricating explosive devices in Pakistan.

Highly placed sources in the State police told The Hindu here on Monday that after his training in Pakistan, Nasir had sneaked into India through the Bangladesh border. Nasir is from the Charminar area in Hyderabad and had been living in Karnataka since August 2007.

It has also come to light that Nasir was associated with the Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HuJI) operative, Mohammad Abdul Shahid of Hyderabad, who is said to have masterminded the twin explosions at the Lumbini Park and Gokul Chats and the blast at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, they said.

The police, it is said, found the telephone numbers of Shaheed and other LeT operatives from Nasir’s diary. Shaheed is believed to have been shot dead in Pakistan a few months ago.

The police intensified investigations into his terrorist links after it emerged that Nasir is the son of Hyderabad moulvi Mohammed Naseeruddin, an accused in the murder of the former Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya, whose assassination was orchestrated by the LeT.

He is now lodged in the Sabarmati jail in Gujarat.

Nasir and his accomplice Asadullah Abubakar (22), a BAMS student at a Hubli college, were arrested on charges of vehicle theft on January 11. The police seized six vehicles, fake number plates, a pen drive, CDs containing religious literature, maps of Goa and some Karnataka towns and American dollars from them.

The investigations are now focussed on the activities of Nasir in the five months after he arrived in Karnataka. Why did the two steal the vehicles and why were they not sold? Could they have stolen the vehicles for a possible act of sabotage in Karnataka? These are the questions uppermost in the minds of the investigators.

Narco analysis

It is not yet confirmed if Nasir had planned to attack the Hubli airport and Hidkal dam in Belgaum district, and if he had e-mailed the details of the airport to top LeT operatives from a cyber café in Hubli, the sources said. The two would be subjected to narco analysis in Bangalore shortly.

Asadullah’s friend Mohammed Asif, a final year MBBS student of Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) in Hubli was also under the police scanner, the sources said.

This came to light after the police questioned his classmates and fellow hostellers.

The police are checking the mobile phone details of a suspected Lashkar operative Imran Bilal, arrested by the Bangalore police in January last, to establish links if any with Asadullah, a native of Hospet in Bellary district.

Senior officers from the State Anti-Terrorist Squad and Bangalore’s Central Crime Branch are coordinating the investigations with the Davangere police.

They are also in touch with the Intelligence Bureau and the Hyderabad police.

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