Hyderabad police knew of IM recce

They were arrested four months ago by Delhi Police Special Cell in connection with last August’s Pune blasts

February 23, 2013 01:50 am | Updated November 16, 2021 10:23 pm IST - NEW DELHI:

The Hyderabad Police had information that two suspected Indian Mujahideen members, arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell four months ago in connection with last August’s Pune serial blasts, had revealed that they surveyed Dilsukhnagar.

The police have in the final report submitted before a city court mentioned that suspects Sayed Maqbool and Imran Khan had in July last year conducted reconnaissance of Dilsukhnagar and Begam Bazar in Hyderabad to identify a target. This, they purportedly revealed, was done at the behest of Riyaz Bhatkal, alleged to be the IM’s founder member. The court is yet to take cognisance of the final report in which charges under Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, the Explosive Substances Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act were filed against the two, along with three others.

Maqbool was arrested at Shaheennagar in Hyderabad last October after the Special Cell arrested Imran and his accomplices Asad Khan, Sayed Feroz and Landge Irfan Mustafa for their alleged role in the Pune blasts. However, following the arrests the police had then told the media that two other suspected members of the outfit, Ahmed and Shakir, were at large. Their whereabouts is still not known.

After Maqbool’s arrest, the police intimated their Hyderabad counterparts about his activities there. “A police team from Hyderabad had come here to join the interrogation,” said a senior police officer. Maqbool purportedly told the interrogators that he had conducted the reconnaissance in Hyderabad and had moved there to a rented accommodation about three months before he was arrested.

Maqbool was allegedly roped into the module by Imran, whom he met in jail while serving sentence in a Nizamabad murder case. According to the police, Imran introduced him to Riyaz and his brother Iqbal Bhatkal.

The Delhi Police said Maqbool knew how to configure bombs and taught the same to the other members of the module that allegedly carried out Pune’s serial blasts to avenge the killing of suspected IM member Qateel Siddique in Pune’s Yerwada Jail by two other jail inmates on June 8 last year. The police further said Maqbool had learnt bomb-making from one Azam Ghori of Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, who was killed in a police encounter in 2000.

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