He was at home during blast, says accused’s family

With the arrest of Wazahul Tamal Khan (44) alias Babubhai, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) believes that they have nabbed the key conspirator of the 2003 Mulund blast, reports Susamma Kurian.

With the arrest of Wazahul Tamal Khan (44) alias Babubhai, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) believes that they have nabbed the key conspirator of the 2003 Mulund blast.

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But Khan’s family insists he is innocent. “He was at home when the blast took place. He is innocent. He cannot do anything to hurt anyone,” Khan’s wife Yasmeen (35) said on Tuesday.

“My husband ran away seven years ago because someone told him the police were looking for him. The ATS officials had even taken me to Chinchpokli for interrogation,” said Yasmeen, adding that he returned home seven months back.

Khan was arrested from Kurla on Monday — seven years after the blast on the Karjat-bound train on March 13, 2003.

Khan owns a shop in Kurla and lived there until 1984. The family, including Yasmeen, their five children and his paralytic mother Mavia Begum (80), shifted to a cramped room in Ambewadi chawl in Wagle Estate, Thane (W).

Yasmeen stitches clothes to run her family, in addition to the Rs 3,500 she gets as rent from the shop and the Rs 500 her eldest daughter, who is in Class 10, earns by giving tuitions.

The police claimed that after the Mulund blast in 2003, Khan had escaped to Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh where his in-laws lived and shifting from one place to another to evade arrest.

“He might have been to Uttar Pradesh as we own a farm there and his in-laws too live there. There’s nothing wrong in visiting them,” said Khan’s elder sister Sayeeda (52). “They called us to the ATS office on Monday, but they neither allowed us to talk to him nor told us why they had arrested him. All they said was that he will be let off after investigation,” she added.

The family is clueless as to what to do next. “He was arrested once but that was a business-related dispute. We don’t know what to do now” asked Sayeeda.