With a special trial court handing down the death penalty to 38 out of 49 convicts for setting off serial bomb blasts in July 2008 in Ahmedabad killing 56 people and injuring more than 200 others, the case has turned out to be a major success for the Ahmedabad Police.
The police team had busted the nationwide terror module created by the operatives of banned organisation SIMI. Within a few weeks of the mass killing in the blasts, Ahmedabad Police in mid-August 2008 had arrested Mufti Abu Bashar or Bashir from Uttar Pradesh and his accomplices for their alleged involvement in the serial blasts that for the first time targeted public hospitals in the city.
“It was very very challenging,” said Gujarat’s Director General of Police Ashish Bhatia, who was then Joint Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad crime branch
According to the police officials who were involved in the probe, the serial blasts were executed with precision by the SIMI operatives who had formed Indian Mujahideen (IM) and radical elements from half a dozen States.
During the course of a probe involving more than 300 police personnel, it was found that the conspiracy for the Ahmedabad attack started at a secret SIMI terror training camp meeting held in December 2007 organised by its chief, Safdar Nagori, deep in the deep forest in Ernakulum, Kerala.
It was revealed that in this camp, around 50 participants from many States were provided arms and fitness training. Similarly, such training camps were held in Karnataka and Gujarat, the probe revealed.
Safdar Nagori, a Madhya Pradesh based chief of SIMI, was one of the masterminds who had organised camps and prepared the manpower to execute the blasts. At the time of the blasts, he was lodged in the Madhya Pradesh jail. He had also organised funds for the training camps.
Besides Nagori himself, his cousin Kamruddin Nagori and Amit Pervez from Madhya Pradesh are among the 38 who have been sentenced to death by the trial court.
Similarly, Mufti Abu Bashar or Bashir, a madrasa teacher based in Uttar Pradesh, indoctrinated youth who could be persuaded into disruptive and terror activities, the probe said. He has also been sentenced to death along with five others from the State.
Afzal Usmani was the one who parked the car loaded with toxic material near Ahmedabad Civil Hospital’s trauma centre where the most number of casualties, 37 persons, occured. He was the first Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative to be arrested by the Mumbai Crime Branch and the arrest led to the busting of the entire IM module across India. He had purchased cars from Maharashtra and sent them to Surat and Ahmedabad to be used for carrying out the blasts.
Qayamuddin Kapadia had coordinated the logistics of procuring cylinders and other toxic materials to make explosives and also arranged a house where those involved in the blasts had stayed after the strike, the investigation found. Kapadia is originally from Vadodara in Gujarat but was arrested from Madhya Pradesh.
A few minutes after the blasts, prominent media houses and others had received an email informing them about major blasts in Ahmedabad. The police probe revealed that the message was the handiwork of Mohd Akbar, who had also planted bombs in Surat which were diffused before explosion.
