IM not involved in 2006 serial train bombings

Suspected Indian Mujahideen operative: Sadiq Israr Shaikh

Mateen Hafeez I TNN
Mumbai: In a major setback to the Mumbai crime branch, a Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court on Monday discharged Indian Mujahideen (IM) co-founder Sadiq Shaikh in the July 11, 2006, serial train blasts case.

On March 17, 2009, TOI had first reported about the ATS’s plan to file an application in the court for Sadiq’s discharge. TOI was also the first to report that in the forensic tests carried out on Sadiq, he said he was not lying about his non-involvement in the train explosions.

Sadiq (31), an electrician from Trombay, was arrested by the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) on February 20 this year and booked in the 7/11 train bombings case; 188 people were killed in the blasts.

The ATS filed an application in court and said it had not found evidence to believe that the IM was responsible for the train blasts. The move will, however, leave the crime branch—which has been claiming otherwise—red-faced.

Judge Y D Shinde discharged Sadiq and informed him about the status of the case. “We thoroughly questioned Sadiq in connection with the train blasts and even subjected him to polygraph and brain-mapping tests. As nowhere was it established that he had any link with the train blasts, we filed an application in the court asking it to discharge him from this case,’’ said Param Bir Singh, ATS additional commissioner of police.

Sadiq was first arrested by the crime branch in September last year along with 20 other suspected operatives of IM for sending terror emails before and after the Ahmedabad and New Delhi blasts. The crime branch had claimed that during interrogation, Sadiq revealed his involvement in the train blasts.

This came as a shock to the ATS as it had arrested 13 suspected Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) members in the case and filed a 11,000-page chargesheet against them in 2006.

The crime branch had claimed that the bombs for the blasts were manufactured in a Sewri flat and the RDX was procured by an IM operative, Riyaz Bhatkal. However, the ATS is sticking to its old theory that the bombs were assembled at a 100-sq-ft flat in Govandi and not in Sewri.

Moreover, the ATS said the RDX was procured by a Pakistani, Ehsanullah, who had entered India along with 10 accomplices from that country.

The Times of India, May 12, 2009