E-Paper
29 years on, 4 men wanted in 1993 Mumbai blasts case held in Gujarat
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 Gujarat Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) has arrested four persons 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.
They 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.
“To spread terror in India, Dossa sent them to a country in the Middle East to meet Dawood in February 1993. On Dawood’s directions, they went to Pakistan to get weapons training. Pakistan’s ISI also gave them training in the making and use of IEDs,” said the DIG.
Abu Bakar was also involved in the dumping of a consignment of weapons into the sea after the blasts, Bhadran said.
All four had fraudulently obtained Indian passports using fake names and forged documents and escaped from India after the serial blasts. While three of them fled to some Middle East countries in 1995 after the arrest of Salim Mira Moinuddin Sheikh by Gujarat ATS, Abu Bakar fled the country in 2000, a senior officer said.
The passports of two of the accused had Bengaluru as their address, while the remaining two had Villupuram in Tamil Nadu and Mira Road in Mumbai as their address on their passports.
On May 12, a team of Gujarat ATS, led by deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Kanubhai K Patel — who had received a specific tip-off — and also comprising DSP Balwantinh H Chavda, DSP Bhavesh P Rojiya and inspector Vishnu B Patel, detained the four accused from Sardarnagar area of Ahmedabad, said an officer.
The investigation in the serial bomb blasts was initially conducted by the Maharashtra Police and later it was handed to the special task force of CBI. On November 4, 1993, a charge sheet was filed against 189 accused, including several absconders, and after the trial, the special Terrorist and Destructive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court convicted 100 of them in September 2006 for their involvement in the blasts. Main conspirators Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon still remain absconding.
“This is the first time so many accused have been caught in connection with the 1993 blasts after the charge sheet was filed,” said Bhadran.
