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Crowded Nehru Place also on terror radar
The police arrested three men on Sunday accusing them of involvement in the September 13 Delhi blasts and planning more explosions, reports Vijaita Singh. Pics of Sept 13 suspects| On bombers' trail| Special
The police arrested three men on Sunday accusing them of involvement in the September 13 Delhi blasts and planning more explosions. They were also charged with bombing Ahmedabad in July.
“They were planning to bomb at least 20 different spots in the crowded Nehru Place office area in south Delhi,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police for south HGS Dhaliwal at a news conference.
They were identified as Mohammad Shakeel, 24, Zia-ur-Rehman, 22, and Saqib Nissar, 23. The fourth person arrested — Abdur Rehman — was charged with forging documents; he is also Zia’s father.
The police said Shakeel bombed Gaffar Market and Zia planted one of the two Central Park bombs. Saqib stayed back — at L 18, Jamia Nagar — on September 13 because his bomb developed a snag.
“Zia told us that originally he was to plant explosives at Palika Bazaar,” the DCP said, adding, “But he changed his mind when he saw heavy police presence there. He went to Central Park instead.” Zia picked a corner of the park. “He had bananas, stuffed the packet containing explosives with the peels and dropped a bomb in a dustbin,” said Dhaliwal.
“After the bombs exploded, they rushed back to their hideout in Jamia Nagar, switched on the TV and compared whose bomb killed how many. Low kills were mocked at, and the bomber would be teased,” the DCP said.
Zia and Shakeel are said to be students of Jamia Milia Islamia University. But the university authorities denied that. But both the police and the families of the accused insisted.
Their families also questioned the arrests.
Zia’s sister said, “My brother is not an extremist. He was studying to be a software engineer. Any young Muslim who has anything to do with computers is arrested and branded a terrorist.” She refused to be identified.
Saqib's father Nissar Ahmed Azmi said, “The police barged into our house and took away my son. He is a serious student who wanted to be an IAS officer. How can somebody who wants to serve the country be a traitor?”
The police believe they were drawn to the Indian Mujahideen, which claimed credit for the September 13 blasts, by the outfit’s leader and mastermind Atif Amin aka Basheer.
Atif was killed on September 19 in an encounter at the outfit’s hideout in Jamia Nagar, the police have said. Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma died of gunshot wounds suffered during the shootout.
Zia and Shakeel freely interacted with reporters outside L 18 after the encounter, defending Atif. In fact, the police said, they got suspicious of them when they used some forged documents to establish Atif’s innocence.
“They had produced a tenant registration form apparently filed by Atif,” a police officer said, adding, “but this form did not exist in our records.” Zia and Shakeel even made it to the studios of some news channels.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Saif, who was arrested two days ago told the police that before the July 26 Ahmedabad blasts, they had even clicked the pictures of the explosives and the car and saved it on their laptop.
