Mumbai, 20 September 2013

Suspected Indian Mujahideen operative Afzal Usmani, accused in year 2008 Ahmedabad and Surat serial blasts today disappeared from outside the MCOCA sessions court in Mumbai. Usmani fled while he was being produced in the court by the Mumbai police. An arrest warrant has been issued against him. More details are awaited.

Usmani had supplied cars for high intensity blasts

During year 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts investigation, the police traced Afzal Usmani as a person who supplied car for terror act.

Police found that Usmani was involved in an extortion case in which another member of the terror module, Riyaz Bhatkal, was also involved. The police subsequently traced Usmani to Uttar Pradesh. After three days of interrogation, he confessed that he dealt in stolen cars and the black Maruti Zen was stolen from Thane.Usmani denied his involvement in stealing cars for terrorist activities but further investigations revealed that in 1997, there was a case of attempt to murder registered with Shivaji Nagar police station.He, along with a SIMI activist, had tried to murder a video parlour owner for operating near a mosque. Bhatkal had called Usmani to Pune three times before the Ahmedabad blasts where he told him about the requirement of cars.Usmani told the police that he had hired the services of car thieves who helped him make duplicate keys. The cars were stolen on the nights of July 7 and July 14.

A day before the triple blasts, the banned IM preferred using cars for blasts since it wanted “maximum impact”, something that could not be got with two wheelers. Four cars were stolen from Navi Mumbai. The IM on August 23, 2008 sent an email to a TV channel claiming responsibility for the Ahmedabad blasts. In the mail, pictures of cars were displayed with captions like, ‘Our favorite toys,’ ‘Weapons of mass destruction’ and ‘The cars that devastated you’.

Mubeen Khan, 32, and Ayyub Shaikh, 28, residents of Khazrana in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, accused of stealing four cars, two of which were used in the Ahmedabad blasts and two in the failed Surat attack of 2008 knew it was for blasts. One of the two was in touch with a senior IM member, Afzal Usmani, who he had befriended in Arthur Road jail.