TERRORISTS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD: (L) Habib Apartments near Palace Talkies at Byculla; (R) flat 53 which the terrorists rented
Mateen Hafeez | TNN
Sultan Khan, the realty agent who finds himself at the centre of a controversy for providing a rented flat to two Pakistani nationals and a suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) commander, has told interrogators that another agent had passed on the three men to him.
The three suspects—Pakistan’s Waqqas and Tabrez, and IM leader Yasin Bhatkal alias Shahrukh alias Imran—stayed in Habib Apartments near Byculla railway station for almost eight months. “They came to me with the reference of some other agent. I work on a commission basis and introduced them to the flat owner, Rubina Qureishi. After they spoke to her, the deal was finalized,” Khan told the anti-terrorism squad (ATS). The three suspects fled the city in mid-December without informing the flat owner, the broker or the neighbours. The ATS, during a search of the one-roomkitchen flat, number 53, on Habib Apartments’ third floor, found several CDs and DVDs and is examining them. The content is not known.
The flat’s door displayed a name, Mohammed Istiyaque A Salam Qureishi. The rent of the 150-square-foot flat was around Rs 8,000 per month. This 80-year-old building houses several small and big flats with mostly salaried tenants. The three posed as call centre employees and would return at odd hours.
No neighbour had any concrete information about them. “We have been terrorized since we heard the blast suspects were staying here. We could not feel that they were so dangerous,” said a tenant. Another tenant said, “They would not interact with us and their door would be closed at all times.” No neighbour knew their names. “Why would we ask anyone their names if they did not want to interact with us? They would mostly leave one by one. We never heard any noise or argument from their room,” said an old woman.
Incidentally, Khan stays in the same building. When TOI visited his second-floor residence at around 2 pm, a woman in her mid-40s was offering prayers. “Khan is not at home,” she said and provided his business card. “Contact him if you want to talk to him,” she said.
The Times of India, January 17, 2012
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