The ATS of the Mumbai and Ahmedabad police have launched a massive joint operation in the city, Vadodara, Surat and Navsari.
Masterminds of the Mumbai blasts may have been behind the Kalupur railway station blast.
AHMEDABAD: A Gujarat angle to the Mumbai blasts is now almost certain. The Anti-Terrorism Squads (ATS) of the Mumbai and Ahmedabad police have launched a massive joint operation in the city, Vadodara, Surat and Navsari to track the culprits responsible for the Mumbai serial bomb blasts on Tuesday.
Convinced about the role of two Aurangabad-based LeT terrorists Faiyaz Ahmed Qazi and Zaibuddin Ansari as the main architects of the blasts, the Mumbai ATS team visited Gujarat on Friday to trace the links of the investigations carried out by the Ahmedabad ATS following the blast at the Kalupur railway station in February, reportedly masterminded by the same duo.
Police officials are refusing to divulge any details about the Mumbai ATS’s Gujarat visit. Gujarat ATS head and DIG DG Vanzara told DNA, “It is a rumour. We do not know anything about it as we have nothing to do with the case.”
However, sources said that activists of the banned extremist organization SIMI had decided six months ago to target affluent Gujaratis in Mumbai. This was apparently done by aggravating the sentiments of the LeT unit in Aurangabad by drawing their attention to the injustice done to Muslims in the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat in 2002.
The plan was then hatched in the Bahawalpur training camp in Pakistan and neatly executed in Mumbai earlier this week.
Other highly placed sources informed DNA that the Gujarat riots in 2002 provided the “push” for the Kashmir-based militant groups to shift their focus to west and south India. “As many as 25-30 boys went missing after the riots in 2002, and were never seen again in Gujarat. Police believe that they have joined the LeT in Aurangabad and are masterminding these attacks specifically targeting the Gujaratis. A young man named Ayub from the Shahpur area of Ahmedabad was also reportedly killed in an encounter in Jammu,” a police official said on condition of anonymity.
According to sources, at least six militant modules are active in western India, particularly Mumbai - four of Lashkar-e-Tayiba, one of Jaish-e-Mohammad and one more anonymous group. They take advantage of the aggrieved Gujarati youth in the region to achieve their target of spreading disquiet in western India.
“A meeting was reportedly held in a training camp in PoK in 2002 of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and LeT. It was decided then that since violence in Kashmir had no political impact, there was a consensus to shift focus to the affluent south and west India. The wrath unleashed during the Gujarat riots gave them the perfect opportunity to expand in the West,” he added.
With inputs from Jumana Shah
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