With a week to go for Independence Day, a Mumbra resident’s attempt to settle an old score with a garage owner by planting explosives outside his establishment and anonymously tipping off the police sent the State security machinery into a tizzy over a possible terrorist strike.
Police said Shahalam Sheikh, 32, a regular police informer, and his friends Mahinsa Ganur, 40, and Arif Khan, 23, were picked up in this connection, and were arrested after they admitted to planting the explosives after 12 hours of interrogation. They have been remanded in police custody by a court till Thursday.
City police sources said the Railway Protection Force (RPF) unit in Thane received a tip-off on Saturday night about a large cache of explosives in Mumbra. The RPF informed the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), and a joint operation was conducted on Gausia Compound, Mumbra-Panvel Road around 4.30 a.m. on Sunday. The raid threw up 10 kg of ammonium nitrate and nine detonators attached to wires from a vehicle outside the garage. Diaghar police station, under whose jurisdiction the compound falls, was kept in the loop and garage owner Ismail Sheikh was questioned.
DCP (Zone I) D.S. Swami, Thane Police, said, “The fact that such a large cache of explosives was kept in a vehicle in an open compound with easy access raised our suspicions. We learned from the Railway Protection Force that the tip-off had come from Shahalam, and picked him up for questioning. Shahalam told the police he had come to know of the explosives from his friends Ganur and Khan, who were also brought in for questioning.
Getting back at Ismail
For nearly 12 hours, the trio stuck to their version of having seen Ismail place the explosives in the car and park it near his garage. While interrogating them together and separately, the police spotted several discrepancies in their claims. Finally, they confessed to having planted it.
Mr. Swami said Ganur was familiar with explosives and detonators from working at a sand excavation site. Ganur, he said, had taken a bank loan to buy two cars from Ismail, who restores old vehicles. When he defaulted on payments to both Ismail and the bank, they took a car each. “Ganur had been angry with Ismail since then.”
Around six months ago, police said, Ganur met Shahalam in Mumbra and they stayed in touch. Knowing Shahalam to be a police informant, Ganur confirmed with him that possessing ammonium nitrate without a valid reason could land a person in trouble. The initial plot hatched by Ganur involved planting the explosives in a way that would implicate Ismail, tipping off the police, and extorting money from Ismail in return for leniency from the cops.
“Ganur procured the explosives from a sand excavation site in Dombivli, and planted it in the compound with Khan’s help. Shahalam then tipped off the RPF on Saturday night,” Mr Swami said. However, they hadn’t factored in the terror aspect.
