Mateen Hafeez & Dwaipayan Ghosh | TNN
Mumbai/New Delhi: The blame game for the alleged fi asco that ended with Indian Mu jahideen (IM) leader Yasin Bhatkal escaping has begun The Maharashtra Anti-Terror ism Squad (ATS) has denied that it scuttled the investigation and accused the Delhi police’s Special Cell of not informing the ATS about its operation in Mumbai as well as seeking to hijack the probe. The ATS in Mumbai claimed it had almost cracked the case, but the Delhi police wanted the credit.
Faced with criticism for not being able to solve the 13/7 blasts case, the ATS had gone all-out in the past two months sources said. It was hunting for Yasin Bhatkal, but was un aware that he had been visiting Byculla under the identity of Imran. While the ATS claimed Bhatkal fled Mumbai on No vember 26 last year, Delhi po lice said Bhatkal fled from Chennai before his hideout was raided and is still holed up somewhere in India.
The city ATS said the Delhi police had camped out in Mum bai hotels. “The Delhi police of ficials never contacted us,” said an ATS officer. “If they had some information, they should have shared it with us. It was a national security issue, but it seems they were concerned only about the credit.”
The cold war between the two agencies also arose because of the arrest of businessman Mohammed Naqi by the ATS in a cheating case. Delhi police said they had brought Naqi to Mumbai to identify Bhatkal The Delhi police claimed that Naqi’s arrest by the ATS in Mumbai alerted the IM sus pects. But the Mumbai police countered that Naqi was ar rested in January, long after the IM suspects fled. However, the Delhi police said on January 1 Bhatkal called landlady Rubi na Qureshi to tell her that he would collect the deposit from her when he visited Mumbai in another 12 days.
The Delhi cops said the ATS came to know of the call made to Rubina. On January 6, the ATS summoned her to ATS headquarters and asked her to keep them informed about Bhatkal. Meanwhile, before Naqi could reach Byculla, he was picked up by ATS.
The ATS said the Delhi po lice did not keep them in the loop and too many sleuths in the area had alerted the ac cused. ATS officials said the Delhi police should have con tacted them if they had any 13/7 information. “We fail to understand why the Delhi po lice are showing so much in terest in our case,” an ATS of ficer said. The state police feared the Delhi police want ed to pick up the suspects and conduct a press conference in Delhi to announce the case was solved.
The Times of India, January 18, 2012
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