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Jaipur serial blasts: search for terror chief gropes in dark

Praveen Swami

Investigation into Harkat ul-Jihad-e-Islami cell hit by mistakes and mishaps

Easing of police pressure helps wanted men
Lack of personnel and technology to cope with challenges

NEW DELHI: Over the past three years, investigators involved in the hunt for Mohammad Mukhtar have learned almost all there is to know about him, from the colour of his eyes to the sound of his voice and the fact that his friends call him ‘Raju’. But a frustrating series of mistakes, mishaps and political machinations has conspired to ensure that India’s police and intelligence services still do not have the one piece of information they really need on the Harkat ul-Jihad-e-Islami operative they believe organised last week’s serial bombing in Jaipur: just where he might be found.

Mukhtar began figuring on the Uttar Pradesh police radar after the March 2006 serial bombings in Varanasi. Investigators found that two Uttar Pradesh-based clerics, Mohammad Zubair and Mohammad Waliullah, had provided logistics support for the bombings. However, the bombs used in the attack were fabricated by three Bangladesh-based Harkat operatives. Mukhtar, it turned out, smuggled in the Research Department Explosive used in the devices.

Last year, Mukhtar commanded one of the teams involved in the synchronised bombing of three trial court buildings in Uttar Pradesh. While Jammu and Kashmir-based Harkat commander Bashir Mir provided the explosives needed for the operation, the cells which targeted the court buildings in Lucknow and Faizabad were commanded by his Uttar Pradesh-based protégés, Mohammad Khalid Mujahid and Tariq Kazmi.

Mukhtar was given charge of the third cell, targeting Varanasi — a city with which he was familiar from the earlier operation.

Mir was shot dead in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district soon after the November 2007 bombings. Mujahid and Kazmi were arrested. Mukhtar, however, succeeded in escaping — helped along by a series of bizarre events.

First, relatives and friends of Mujahid and Kazmi levelled allegations that the men had been kidnapped and tortured by the police. Large-scale protests by Islamist political groups and the Samajwadi Party followed. Police sources told The Hindu they were then ordered by the State government to ease down on further arrests, for fear of provoking a communal problem.

Even as this drama played itself out, police in West Bengal announced the arrest of a man they believed was Mukhtar. Within a fortnight, though, the Uttar Pradesh police realised that a Baranagar-based power company employee Aftab Alam Ansari was not the Harkat operative they were looking for. Embarrassed, the Uttar Pradesh police closed the file on the court complex bombings.

Among those who benefited from the easing of police pressure were two men now being sought in connection with the Jaipur attacks. One was a Hyderabad-based shopkeeper who left the city soon after the May 2007 bombing of the Mecca Masjid and set up a mobile phone business in Jaunpur; the other, an Azamgarh resident with connections to the Students Islamic Movement of India. Both names are being withheld by The Hindu to avoid compromising the investigation.

Missed Opportunities

Investigators made little effort after January 2008 to explore the many leads which could, conceivably, have helped to prevent the Jaipur attacks.

Among the questions which went unanswered was just who had e-mailed a jihadist manifesto to television stations within minutes of the court complex bombings, claiming responsibility for the attacks on behalf of the until-then unknown Indian Mujahideen.

Both Mujahid and Kazmi told their interrogators that they knew nothing of the e-mail, which made it likely that Mukhtar had links with the e-mail’s author. However, no systematic effort was made to trace the author.

Now, after a near-identical jihadist manifesto was e-mailed from New Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar area in the wake of the Jaipur bombings, investigators are revisiting the question — 64 lives too late. “What happened in the court complex case,” an officer said, “is a symptom of a larger problem. We’re swamped by the volume of counter-terrorism investigations confronting us, and just do not have the personnel or technology to cope with. While police forces abroad commit thousands of personnel to a single counter-terrorism case, no police force in India has even a hundred people it can allocate to a single case. As for resources, look at the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force — it doesn’t even have a building of its own.”

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