Cops get info on Pak terror camps

WHEN THE MIDNIGHT KNOCK COMES...
(At left) Zameer’s mother Rayeesa (left) with his wife Yasmin and son Osama in their tiny hutment at Lotus Colony in Worli, Mumbai. (Right) Sohail’s parents Hajra and Mehmood Shaikh at their Bhimpura residence in Pune camp on Tuesday

Two SIMI Members Arrested On Charges Of 7/11 Conspiracy

By Mateen Hafeez I TNN
Mumbai: The Mumbai police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad on Tuesday got its hands on two more members of the now-banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Zameer Shaikh and Sohail Shaikh.

Police officers said both were in direct touch with Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Maharashtra ‘commander-in-chief ’, whose identity they refused to disclose. Officials only said he
was a Mumbai-based businessman.

Police said Zameer and Sohail, who were arrested late on Tuesday night, are likely to be charged with criminal conspiracy and with having undergone terror training in Pakistan. But neither the crime branch nor the ATS was sure of the extent of their participation in Terror Tuesday. “We are questioning them and they will definitely give us some leads in the case,’’ a senior officer connected with the probe into Terror Tuesday said.

Another of those detained, 29-year-old software engineer Muzammil Shaikh, was transferred from the crime branch unit-II office to another location on Tuesday. Muzammil, originally from Temkar Street in Nagpada, sold his house in 1996 and settled in Bangalore. He is now working with a multinational company there and earns Rs 40,000 a month. Officials said he went to Pakistan for training and was picked up on information passed on by the Intelligence Bureau.

Officers said Zameer and Sohail provided “important’’ information about LeT terror camp commander and training-in-charge Azam Chima. “There are about 14 training camps across Pakistan where youths from different parts of the world train in terror,’’ one of the officers said. ISI operative Chima was one of the men that the country’s intelligence agencies would like to have in their net, he said.

Chima is also said to be a close associate of Maulana Masood Azhar, area commander of Pakistani outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad. Indian Airlines flight IC-814 was hijacked in 1999 to get Azhar released from Tihar Jail.

“Zameer and Sohail, who underwent training in different years, also met Chima on the last day of their training (somewhat similar to convocation day). The trainees get a chance to meet Chima on this day,’’ an official said, adding, “There are at least a dozen more LeT-trained persons in Mumbai alone. The area commander, who is under police surveillance, could be arrested next week.’’

Muzammil’s unemployed brother, Faisal, also underwent training in a camp in Pakistan, officials added. But officials are not sure of his role in Terror Tuesday.

Suspects planned attacks in rest of state
Mumbai: Thirtyone-year-old Zameer Shaikh, a SIMI member who was picked up by the Mumbai police on Tuesday, is a resident of Lotus Colony at Worli while the 38-year-old Sohail Shaikh, also a SIMI activist, stays at Bhimpura, near Camp in Pune. “We have information that they planned attacks in Aurangabad and Pune and the consignment of explosives was supposed to be brought from Ratnagiri. We are now hunting for about a dozen more suspects who were part of this conspiracy,’’ an officer said. ATS officials said they had alerted officials in Aurangabad, Pune and Ratnagiri.

Zameer, a commerce graduate from Akbar Peerbhoy College near Nagpada, now runs a key-making shop at Grant Road along with his father. He continued working with a few other SIMI members after the organisation was banned in 2001 and they would meet frequently and discuss the “problems the community was facing’’. “Zameer went to Pakistan for training in 2005. His visa and tickets were arranged by a Mumbai-based businessman who doubled up as the LeT commander in Maharashtra. He took an Iran Airlines flight and got down at Teheran airport where he was received by three LeT agents,’’ an official said. The trail then went cold, the official admitted, saying they went to an unknown destination by road.

Sohail was a class-XII dropout from a Pune English-medium school and would “cure’’ patients by “spiritual treatment’’. He obtained training from a terror module in Pakistan in 2003, officials said. No one, however, explained what took police three years to go after him.

Zameer met unani physician Tanvir Ansari three years ago at a library on Belasis Road near Nagpada. It was Tanvir who introduced him to the unidentified LeT ‘commander’, who promised him to help him in jehad by sending him abroad for training.

The Times of India, July 26, 2006