Sept 13 explosives supplier may have link to Bangalore blast

The Intelligence Bureau is probing whether absconding Indian Mujahideen operative Shahrukh, who is based in Karnataka and allegedly supplied the explosives that were used in the September 13 serial blasts in Delhi, Abhishek Sharan.

The Intelligence Bureau (IB) is probing whether absconding Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative Shahrukh, who is based in Karnataka and allegedly supplied the explosives that were used in the September 13 serial blasts in Delhi, is linked to a terror module held responsible for the July 2008 Bangalore blasts.

HT Image

On Saturday, the Bangalore police, that arrested nine alleged terror operatives including timer expert E.T. Jainuddin alias Abdul Sattar since January 20, claimed this group had executed the July 25, 2008 serial blasts in that city. Shahrukh, whose identity has not been established till now, and Jainuddin’s module are suspected to be linked to IM’s south-Indian wing, the Shahabuddin Ghouri brigade, the IB suspects.

The link between Kerala-born Jainuddin and the Delhi blasts’ conspiracy are IM’s top operatives Riyaz Bhatkal and Qayamuddin Kapadia, who are both accused of having played roles in the Delhi blasts according to Special Cell’s charge sheet.

A senior IB official who requested anonymity since he is not authorised to talk to media told HT, “It was Qayamuddin Kapadia who first revealed to us about the terror activities of radio mechanic Jainuddin alias Abdul Sattar, who made the microchip-based timer devices used in the Bangalore blasts.”

“According to Qayamuddin, he and Riyaz Bhatkal had twice been to Sattar’s home in Hyderabad last October. Riyaz had asked Sattar to make as many timers as he could since he needed many,” added the officer. Jainuddin was arrested on January 20 by the Hyderabad police that then handed him over to the Bangalore police; while Bhatkal is currently absconding, Kapadia was arrested by the Madhya Pradesh police that handed him over to the Delhi police.

According to the September Delhi blasts’s charge sheet, accused Mohammed Saif and Mohammed Khalid received the explosives from Shahrukh in Udipi, Karnataka, on August 28 last year. Saif, who died in the Batla house encounter on September 19 last year, had stayed in one Hotel New Broadway at Manipal having used a fake identity.

Since then, the search for Shahrukh has yielded little. One reason for this could be that until recently the identities of Bhatkal’s associates in south India has largely remained unknown, said anti-terror officials.