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| India-Pakistan |
| Gujarat coordination brought Delhi shootout success |
| 2008-09-20 |
| The successful operation leading to the gunning down of SIMI operative Bashir alias Atiq who was involved in Ahmedabad and New Delhi blasts has once again underlined the importance of co-ordination between intelligence and investigative agencies at the Centre and in states. Sources put down the breakthrough to the coordination among cops of the Capital, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, with the Intelligence Bureau acting as the facilitator. According to sources critical inputs came from the Gujarat police, which has extracted reams of crucial information from the SIMI/Indian Mujahideen activists being held for the Ahmedabad blasts and the failed attack on the diamond city of Surat. The IB officials, after the input had been vetted by their units in Maharashtra and Gujarat, passed it on to Delhi Police which developed it with the help of scientific investigation before zeroing in on the hideout at L-18 at Batla House in Jamia Nagar. Apparently the Ahmedabad crime branch which is probing the serial blast cases of July 26 in which 57 were killed, had collected phone call details of Mufti Abu Bashar and Sajid Mansuri, two important suspects in these blasts. After the Delhi blasts, there was suspicion of the same persons being involved. "As the same module was behind both the blasts, we further questioned Bashar and Sajid Mansuri on the Delhi blasts", said a crime branch official. Delhi police took Bashar away on Thursday. Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) Ashish Bhatia, told TOI that Bashar's statement was vital for further investigation. "We got his call list and analysed it. We found some of the numbers from Delhi's certain areas, Jamia Nagar among them. We gave this list to central agencies," he said. These agencies - Intelligence Bureau (IB) and National Security Guards (NSG), then further analysed and corroborated the location of the calls. The agencies were also given the statements of the accused recorded by Ahmedabad crime branch which also talked about Bashar's visits to Delhi. "The Mufti was needed to identify the places we suspected. He took us to Jamia Nagar and we confirmed it was the same place mentioned in the statement. A local STD PCO booth was used to make calls to various places in India, which we identified. Then we kept these flats under surveillance," said a senior Delhi police official. |
| Posted by:Fred |