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Gujarat police recover arms, CDs

AHMEDABAD: In further confirmation of the involvement of some of those arrested in connection with the serial blasts here, the Gujarat police have recovered some weapons and compact discs containing “jihadi speeches” from a house and a warehouse at Vadodara.

Abhay Chudasma, Deputy Commissioner, Crime Branch, said on Wednesday that the police recovered an air pistol, a pistol, two live cartridges, a laptop and a pipe bomb as well as 19 CDs and DVDs from a warehouse in the Panigate locality at Vadodara.

During interrogation, one of the accused, Usman Agarbattiwala, said he was given a bag by another accused, Qayamuddin, who is still at large, and he hid it in his uncle’s warehouse. The police took Usman to the house at Taiwada in the Wadi area and the warehouse in the Panigate area and recovered the bag that contained the weapons and the CDs and DVDs.

Mr. Chudasma said the CDs and DVDs contained instigating speeches of Osama bin Laden, Al Jawahiri and some other terror leaders. Usman also stated that the air pistol was used at a training camp in Pavagadh in January. The laptop was recovered from Usman’s house.

The pipe bomb was dismantled and all the materials were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory for analysis.

The police raided the houses of two other accused — Imran Sheikh in Vadodara and Sajid Mansuri in Broach. FSL officials accompanying them found traces of chemicals used for manufacturing bombs in Imran’s Akmal apartment house in Bawamanpura. Records of more “jihadi” literature were found from Sajid’s Broach house.

At the instance of Usman, the police also raided three cyber cafes at Panigate and seized 28 computers and some hard discs. The police believe that the cyber cafes were frequented by Sajid Mansuri and Abdul Subhan Qureshi alias Taufique Bilal, the computer expert among the terror group.

The police had earlier stated that the warning e-mail sent minutes before the blasts here was sent by Taufique from Navi Mumbai from a hacked address. But, after raiding the cyber cafes, the police said the e-mail could possibly have been drafted in Vadodara also. But the police were convinced that the Vadodara cyber cafes were used by Taufique and Sajid to remain in touch with the SIMI top leader, Safdar Nagori, before his arrest in Indore in March.

Mr. Chudasma said the police had identified those who had actually planted the bombs here. The terror group this time used outsiders — five from Madhya Pradesh and two each from Maharashtra and Karnataka — to plant the bombs. They were guided by some local youths, including Zahid Sheikh, Shamsuddin Sheikh, Arif Kagji and Gayasuddin Sheikh, all under detention now.

“Not more than 15 people were involved in planting the bombs at 18 places in the city, besides the major blasts outside the trauma centre in civil hospital and the L.G. municipal hospital,” the police said.

A Cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Gandhinagar, adopted a resolution, urging President Pratibha Patil to give her assent to the Gujarat Bill against organised crime that had been pending for more than four years.

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