The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Bashir was accused in city’s terror case

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Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Bashir was accused in city’s terror case

Marri Ramu

HYDERABAD: Abul Bashir, arrested by the Gujarat police on charge of masterminding the Ahmedabad serial blasts, was already made an accused in a terrorism-related case registered by the city police a year ago.

Investigators got wind of Mr. Bashir’s possible complicity with terrorist outfits first when Raziuddin Nazir, a terror suspect arrested by the Karnataka police, revealed his name in his narco-analysis report. He maintained that one Bashir from Uttar Pradesh was sent to Hyderabad to ‘coordinate’ the execution of ‘specific tasks’.

As Mr. Nazir’s other claims - that terrorist outfits were procuring rocket launchers and planning to use gas tankers to attack government buildings - turned out to be false, investigators did not pursue the lead about Mr. Bashir.

Even Safdar Nagori, general secretary of the Student’s Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) arrested in Madhya Pradesh, hinted about Mr. Bashir’s presence in Hyderabad.

Mr. Nagori, who was believed to be holding key to several terrorist modules in the country, mentioned about a person from U.P. “But he took the name of Abdul Rashid. This confused and misled us though later we found both were one and the same,” a police officer told The Hindu.

Mr. Bashir’s name also cropped up in the confessions of Mohtasim Billa and Muqeeuddin Yaser, two youths from Saidabad arrested on criminal conspiracy charge. Mr. Yaser told his interrogators that Mr. Bashir was connected to SIMI and worked closely with some fundamentalist organisations.

This, and the finding that Mr. Bashir was in city from 2005 to 2007 and that he left for Uttar Pradesh soon after the Mecca Masjid blast, pointed the needle of suspicion towards him. That is when Hyderabad police included his name as the 62nd accused in a terrorism-related case (crime no. 197 of 2007) in Gopalapuram police station. They tried in vain to track him and alerted their counterparts in Uttar Pradesh but the latter too could not make much headway.

The city police included names of 64 persons in the Gopalapuram case. So far, 19 persons are arrested. A special team is leaving for Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday to question Mr. Bashir.

“Cracking the twin blasts case depends on what Bashir reveals,” the police say.

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