Two Haren Pandya case accused in UPA's list of wanted terrorists

It is interesting that two key conspirators of the Haren Pandya murder, who are absconding, also figure in the list of 50 terror suspects given to the Pakistan by the UPA government for their arrest.

Special counsel for the state government, JM Panchal, told the Gujarat high court that the two absconding accused - Mufti Sufian and Rasul Party - figure in the list submitted to Pakistan.

"The list includes the names of Rasul Party and Mufti Sufian who had allegedly hatched a conspiracy to take revenge for the 2002 riots and had conspired to eliminate Pandya," Panchal said. He made this statement during the final hearing on the appeal of the 12 convicts who were recently acquitted of murder charges by the Gujarat high court.

The CBI had stated that Mufti Sufian, a Muslim cleric, had used his powerful skills at oratory, to exploit the sentiments of Muslims.

During his religious discourses, he urged Muslims to involve themselves in jehadi activities like planting of bombs and targeting VHP and Hindu leaders. He had succeeded in creating among members of the minority community great ill-will against leaders of the BJP, VHP, and the Bajrang Dal, the CBI stated. For his mission he had strengthened relations with Rasool Party, an absconding terrorist believed to be living in Karachi, the probe agency said.

According to the Ahmedabad police, Rasool Party, a henchman of Dawood Ibrahim, had provided financial assistance for the conspiracy to take revenge for the riots.

During the hearing on the appeal in the high court, the defence had accused the CBI of doing nothing to nab the accused. During questioning by the defence lawyer, Nitya Ramakrishnan, CBI's investigating officer, Sushil Gupta, revealed that the probe agency had issued a red corner notice against the two accused and had declared them proclaimed offenders. But strangely the officer did not investigate to know the whereabouts of the accused.

Sushil Gupta also admitted that during the course of investigation, they had traced the location of Sufian's wife and his relatives but had not met them to find out where Sufian was.