4 held in 1993 Mumbai blasts case in Gujarat
HT Correspondent
AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat Antiterror Squad (ATS) has arrested four people wanted in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case, senior officers said on Tuesday.
The accused, identified as Abu Bakar, Saiyad Qureshi, Mohammad Shoeb Qureshi alias Shoeb Bawa and Mohammad Yusuf Ismail alias Yusuf Bhatka, all residents of Mumbai, were on the run for 29 years, senior ATS officers said. The four were arrested from Sardarnagar area of Ahmedabad on May 12 following a tip-off, said Amit Vishwakarma, additional director general of police (ADG), Gujarat ATS.
The accused had travelled illegally to Pakistan and undergone weapons and explosives training in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir at the behest of Un-designated global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim before the 1993 serial blasts, said Deepan Bhadran, deputy inspector general of police (DIG), Gujarat ATS. Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-services Intelligence (ISI), had also provided training to the four accused in handling weapons and use of improvised explosive devices (IED), the DIG added.
The arrests have come more than 29 years after 12 serial bomb blasts rocked the financial capital of India and shook the entire country on March 12, 1993, killing 257 people, injuring more than 700 others and destroying properties worth ₹27 crore.
The ATS had initially booked them for allegedly obtaining passports on the basis of forged documents for fleeing the country in 1993, another senior officer said, adding that it was found later that they were wanted accused in the serial blasts case.
“To hide their real identities, they had obtained passports using forged documents. Interpol had issued a Red-corner
Notice against them on the request of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the blasts case,” the ADG told reporters.
Initial investigation by the ATS revealed that the accused had returned to India for some passport modification work. “They had plans to go to some other places in India. So far, we have not found that they were involved in any other terrorist activity after the Mumbai blasts. We are still investigating for how long they were in Ahmedabad,” said a senior ATS officer, requesting anonymity.
They four have been booked under sections 466 (forgery of record), 468 (forgery for cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) besides under The Passports Act, the ADG said.
“It is a matter of investigation when they came back to India and what they were doing in Gujarat. Upon completion of their ATS remand in the forgery case, we will hand them over to CBI in the blasts case,” Bhadran said.
In the 1980s and 90s, the accused used to work for gold smuggler Mohammed Dossa, an associate of fugitive gangster and mastermind of the serial blasts Dawood Ibrahim, said the DIG.
“This is the first time that so many accused have been caught in connection with the 1993 blasts after the charge sheet was filed,” said Bhadran.