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Gujarat ATS arrests three for breach of Passport Act

Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat Antiterrorist Squad (ATS) has arrested three persons, including one from Mumbai, for alleged suspicious movements and breach of the Passport Act.

The police said, acting on a tip-off that some unidentified persons had moved into the country from the Tuna port under the Kandla port in the Gulf of Kutch a couple of months ago, the police traced a man at Khar in Mumbai and brought him to Ahmedabad for questioning.

He first identified himself as Ashok Shinde but later changed his name to Chandrakant Vasani. His questioning led to the arrest of two more persons, Ibrahim Juma Surahi and Illyas Kasam Bandari, both residents of Jam- Salaya in Jamnagar district in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. According to what Vasani told the police, he was residing with his family in Dubai for the past 20 years, engaged in commodity trading. In the last few months, he suffered a loss of over Rs.22 crore, following which his Dubaibased financier, Abdul Rehman, took away his passport and threatened to kill him.

Sneaks into country In a bid to escape back to India, Vasani contacted his friend Illyas, who in turn put him in touch with Ibrahim Surahi, the captain of a Dubai- based cargo ship, Al-Murad. They jointly planned to sneak Vasani out on the cargo ship which left Dubai on April 13, and dropped him at Tuna port on April 29. From Tuna, Vasani surreptitiously sneaked into the country and reached Khar by train from Gandhidham.

The Gujarat ATS arrested him on July 13 and brought him and the other two to Ahmedabad for questioning.

The police, however, is still unconvinced about Vasani's version of the events and suspect that he could have been cultivated by the ISI.The police was surprised that Vasani chose to sneak out of Dubai leaving behind his wife and children.

His changing names was also suspicious besides his landing at Tuna on April 29, a day before Gujarat went to the Lok Sabha polls and security agencies were engaged in poll arrangements, the police said.

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