'IM leaders from Pak plotted 13/7 strike’

MUMBAI: The serial bombings that hit Mumbai on July 13 last year were planned and coordinated by Indian Mujahideen leaders from Pakistan, according to the chargesheet filed by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) before a special Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act court on Friday.

The nearly 4,800-pages-long document names at least 10 accused and says that the objectives behind the bombings at Opera House, Zaveri Bazar and Dadar were to “create instability in the state” and to “weaken the country’s economy” . Twenty-seven people died in the blasts and another 127 were injured . The police have so far arrested five people in the case and are on the lookout for six others. The fifth arrest—of 52-year-old Kafeel Ansari—was made last Saturday ; he will be chargesheeted later.

“Ansari, who originally hails from Bihar, had provided logistical support and actively participated in the criminal conspiracy,” said Rakesh Maria, additional DGP, ATS.

The chargesheet says that “the entire criminal conspiracy was hatched by Riyaz Bhatkal and Yasin Bhatkal” , the “chief cogs” of Indian Mujahideen. The banned terrorist goup, it adds, was created by Pakistani spy agency ISI “to spread terror in this country” . Riyaz and his brother Iqbal Bhatkal “operate from Pakistan with the help of their associates based in India by imparting instructions to them” via electronic means through Yasin. Riyaz and Yasin are two of the wanted accused named in the chargesheet. Among the remaining wanted accused are two suspected Pakistani nationals identified as Waqqas Ibrahim Shaikh and Danish alias Tabrez; a 22-year-old , Shaikh Mohd Tahsin Akhtar, currently believed to be on the run in Andhra Pradesh; and an Indian-born hawala operator based in Dubai named Muzzafar Kola.

Kola’s name had also figured in the kidnapping of Roy Burman, the owner of Kolkata-based Khadim Shoes. “Kola had instructed Pathreja to hand over Rs 10 lakh to someone identified as Shivanand. Later, we found that Shivanand was none other than Yasin,” said Maria. More than Rs 12 lakh was used to execute the three blasts. The bombs, the document states, were assembled at an apartment in Habib Mansion, Byculla — the same place where Tabrez and Waqqas stayed between February and November last year.

TERROR REWIND

THE ATTACK:

On July 13, 2011, a series of coordinated bombings rocked Opera House, Zaveri Bazar and Dadar, killing 27 and injuring 127. At Zaveri Bazar, the bomb was planted on a scooter; at Opera House, in a dustbin; and at Dadar, atop a bus stop. Investigations later showed that ammonium nitrate and TNT were the main ingredients used in the explosives

THE CONSPIRACY:

According to police sources, Indian Mujahideen leader Riyaz Bhatkal, in a conversation with Yasin Bhatkal, hatched a plot to carry out a terror strike in Mumbai in December 2010. No more than seven months was spent on planning and executing the attacks