Abu Jundal's 8 email ids still uncracked

The central and state agencies who have questioned Abu Jundal, one of the key conspirators in the 26/11 attacks, have been unable to gain access to eight out of ten key email accounts handled by him for conducting LeT operations. Presley Thomas reports.

The central and state agencies who have questioned Syed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, one of the key conspirators in the 26/11 attacks and the man who taught Hindi to Ajmal Kasab, have been unable to gain access to eight out of ten key email accounts handled by Jundal for conducting operations for Lashkar-e-Taiba.

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It is critical to crack these accounts as they could reveal how LeT recruits youths, indoctrinates them and draws them into anti-India operations, a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Jundal has also used the accounts to mail and post inflammatory speeches online, the officer said.

Arrested in Saudi Arabia and deported to India in June this year, Jundal has been questioned by the crime branch of Mumbai police, Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad and the special cell of Delhi police so far.

Police sources said that the reason the investigators have made no headway in the matter of the email ids is that Jundal has been giving incorrect information on passwords and other means of account identification.

A resident of Beed, Jundal fled to Pakistan in 2006 after the ATS started looking for him in connection with the Aurangabad arms haul case.

This account was created from a cyber café in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in October 2010, and was also used to create a Facebook profile with the same name, sources said.

The Facebook page was then used for LeT activities and also to get one Beed resident to hand over Rs 50,000 to one of the accused in the arms haul case.

On the page, Jundal alias Sameer described himself as a journalist from Aurangabad, sources said.

The chief of Lashkar's India operations, Muzzamil alias Yusuf, had asked Jundal to create e-mail accounts "to spread terror and wage jihad against India," a senior police officer who interrogated Jundal said.

A software engineer, Imran Nishaan, who works with Muzzamil, issued directions to Jundal on how to go about it, the officer said.

The accounts accessed so far are aazamkhan.ak47@gmail.com and rahilcool@yahoo.com, a supplementary charge sheet filed in New Delhi by the special cell of Delhi police says.

Details from these accounts are being examined, and another supplementary charge sheet will be filed under Section 173 (8) of the Criminal Procedure Code once all the contents of the mail exchanges are known, sources said.

The crime branch of Mumbai police filed a supplementary charge sheet against Jundal, naming him as one of the main 26/11 conspirators, on Tuesday last.