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NIA visits '08 Malegaon blast links with '06 suspect -Smita Nair
-The Indian Express

Mumbai: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has begun retracing the reported trips of a Malegaon inverter dealer to Nashik, Ujjain, Indore and Devas before he was arrested in connection with the 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts as these cities are alleged to be strongly connected to the 2008 bomb blast in the textile town which has been blamed on Hindu extremists.

The man, Abrar Ahmed, claims he had heard a few men in a doctor’s cabin discussing names of the conspirators behind the blasts when he had gone to the Medicare Hospital in Malegaon to help the injured after the September 8, 2006 blasts.

He shared this with his wife, two brothers-in-law and the Nashik SP before he went “missing” for 86 days. He resurfaced when the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested him, accusing him of being one of the bomb planters.

He turned an approver only to retract his statements later. In a court statement, he had denied his role in the blasts and alleged that he was “held captive” by the police and taken to several places during the time he was “missing”.

With Hindu extremists suspected to be behind the 2006 blasts as well, the NIA is revisiting Ahmed’s claims. Last month, Ahmed narrated to the NIA the sequence of events during those days before his arrest and even took NIA officers to the exact locations he was allegedly taken to by Nashik police officers.

The NIA also plans to take him to Ujjain, Devas and Indore, which along with Nashik are named in the 2008 Malegaon blast chargesheet as the cities in which the accused met to conspire.

“In Nashik, the NIA was shocked when I took them to the police quarters - one of the places where I was held captive,” Ahmed told The Sunday Express. A senior NIA officer said Ahmed is a “confusing but intriguing” aspect in the probe.

“We still need to verify the sequence of his journey and understand the motive behind him being taken or him visiting these places, all of which have some connection to Malegaon 2008. Until then he remains under investigation,” the officer said.

Ahmed has shown three houses in Nashik’s Jagtap colony and a room in a police colony which then belonged to a constable. He has told them that these were the places where he and his then wife Jannatunnisa were held captive, with no access to the outside world. Jannatunnisa has since remarried and was questioned by NIA in 2012.

Ahmed has also told them about two hotels in Mumbai where he was made to wait the week before he was brought to the court by the ATS after his arrest on December 16, 2006.

One of them is Hotel Pritam in Dadar (West), where he says the room “had a nice air-conditioner and a TV and a good bathroom”. He has also claimed he was introduced to Lt Col Prasad Purohit, arrested for the 2008 Malegaon blast, at a military camp in Deolali by local police. The NIA is yet to visit the Deolali Camp.

“In Jagtap colony, I had forgotten the routes and it took me some time to give proper directions. The NIA officers were patient with me and have mapped the journey. I was never taken to the houses from the same route by the police in 2006, so it was difficult for me to navigate around those areas,” Ahmed said.

“In all the houses, the NIA officers would make me explain the interior layout of the house before we moved in. I was right in all three places. In the last house that I was held captive, I told them that there is a hall and kitchen and other rooms on the other end. When we walked in, it was different, but later the current tenants confirmed that the layout had been changed,” he said. “I frankly have no connection or reason to be in those houses. I would not know about them unless I have stayed in them.”

In 2006, Ahmed’s lawyer-brother Jalil Ahmed had written to several agencies including the home minister and the state police saying Abrar had been taken to Nashik by the local police.

The letter of October 23, 2006, 10 days after he went missing, claimed Abrar was made to sit with Hindu saints and Kashmiri youth and videographed. “He is not saying anything new. All the accused in Malegaon 2008 have connections to the same locations where Abrar was taken in 2006. He is now just repeating the sequence, something which I had informed the court in 2006 itself,” Jalil said.