IM carried out Delhi serial blasts; had links with LeT: Police

The police today claimed before a Delhi court that Indian Mujahideen that had allegedly carried out the serial blasts in the national capital in 2008 at the instance of its founder, now Pakistan-based Amir Raza Khan, was an off-shoot of terror outfits like SIMI, LeT and HuJI.

The police on Wednesday claimed before a Delhi court that Indian Mujahideen that had allegedly carried out the serial blasts in the national capital in 2008 at the instance of its founder, now Pakistan-based Amir Raza Khan, was an off-shoot of terror outfits like SIMI, LeT and HuJI.

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"Amir wanted to avenge the death of his brother Asif Raza Khan in a police encounter in 2001. This fact was revealed in a letter written by Aftab Ansari, facing death penalty in 2002 Kolkata's American Centre attack case, to the widow of Asif," Public Prosecutor Rajeev Mohan said.

Mohan was putting forth the arguments before Additional Sessions Judge Santosh Snehi Mann on charges to be framed against 14 suspected IM terrorists arrested so far in connection with the serial blasts here on September 13, 2008.

The prosecutor referred to the Calcutta High Court's judgement -- confirming death penalty awarded to Aftab Ansari in the American Centre attack case -- that had appreciated a letter allegedly written by him to the wife of Asif, his associate.

During his over an hour-long arguments, the prosecutor narrated different events like hijack of Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in 1999 and subsequent release of three terrorists and the American Centre attack of 2002 to claim that there was meeting of minds among the conspirators at Tihar jail here.

Several accused like Asif and Aftab had developed a nexus and formed interested groups as they remained in prison in others cases in 1990s, Mohan submitted.

The prosecutor claimed the police had in its possession emails records, disclosure statements of accused, besides intelligence inputs, to establish links between Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-Ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) with Students Islamic Movements of India (SIMI) and IM.

The arguments of the prosecutor remained inconclusive and are likely to continue on Thursday.

Meanwhile, ASJ Mann put off its order for two weeks on the application of the Bangalore police seeking custody of two suspected IM men Salman and Shahzad on the ground that the matter at the court here was at a crucial stage and handing over their custody would disrupt the proceedings.

Bangalore police wanted the custody of the duo to investigate their alleged role in connection with M Chinnaswamy Stadium blasts in April this year.

I A Ansari, counsel for the accused, on the other hand, claimed there was no question of their involvement as they were in judicial custody.

The court, however, said it was not looking into the merit of the application at the moment and kept the application pending for two weeks.