Crime Line : Crime Branch wants Jundal for 26/11, ATS for Pune blasts

Mateen Hafeez & Swati Deshpande | TNN

The custody of Zabihuddin Ansari (alias Zaby alias Abu Jundal) is being sought both by the Mumbai crime branch and the Anti-Terrorism Squad.
While the Mumbai crime branch has already obtained a production warrant from a city court for Zaby’s custody to ascertain his role in the 26/11 attacks, the ATS is preparing for a transfer warrant to take him into custody in Pune’s German Bakery blasts, the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul and several forgery cases.

On Monday, Ujjwal Nikam, special public prosecutor during Pakistani gunman Ajmal Kasab’s trial and 26/11 investigating officer Ramesh Mahale moved a metropolitan magistrate, seeking that Jindal should be produced in a Mumbai court. Zaby is believed to have guided and controlled the terrorists at Nariman House from a Karachi control room throughout the night of November 27, 2008.

“When the terror attack in Nariman House was in progress, Abu Jundal gave instructions to the attackers on phone and his conversation was intercepted by Mumbai police. The transcripts are on record. Jundal told the attackers that they should talk to the electronic media in a particular manner,” Nikam told the court. Jundal gave the attackers a certain text to be given to electronic channels. His intention was to show that 26/11 was masterminded by Indian Muslims and not Pakistani terrorists, but it was foiled by Kasab’s arrest.

Nikam further added that Kasab had told the special trial judge that Jundal was in a Pakistani vessel, al-Husseni, with the 10 attackers and three other Pakistanis when they hijacked the Indian vessel Kuber. After the 10 terrorists boarded Kuber, Jundal wished them success for their mission and returned to Pakistan on the al-Husseini. Nikam added that the voice on the intercepted phone call has to be matched by a scientific spectrograph test with voice samples which will have to be taken from Jundal, so his custody was necessary. The court then issued a production warrant.

Zaby, 31, first came under the police scanner in 2006. “We had specific information that a person (Zaby) would come near the Manmad-Chandvad highway on May 6, 2006, with a huge consignment of arms and ammunition. We spotted three men in a Tata Sumo and an Indica driven by a man. We chased the two vehicles towards Aurangabad highway and caught the trio in the Sumo, but the man in the Indica gave us a slip. He later turned out to be Zaby, the main player in transporting the arms,” said an ATS officer who was part of the operation.

The ATS arrested 21 men—six from Beed district, five from Malegaon, five at Aurangabad, two in Parbhani district and three from other places. “Zaby drove the Indica to Malegaon and met acquaintances there. He told them he had to park his car for a few days as he was going to meet a relative. The car was packed with arms,” said police. Police had seized 43kg of RDX, 50 hand grenades, 16 AK-47 rifles and 3,200 live bullets from various places, including the car. The ATS disposed of the seized explosives on July 7, 2006.

Zaby, say police, underwent training in operating firearms and explosives in late 2005 or 2006. “We don’t know when exactly he went for training. But on his return, he sent around half-a-dozen youths from Maharashtra to Pakistan’s Muridke camp for training,” said an officer.

“Zaby attended a meeting in a Colombo hotel where Indian Mujahideen operative Yasin Bhatkal and suspected key SIMI players like Fayyaz Kagzi and others were present. In the meeting, it was decided that Zaby would pass on LeT instructions to the Bhatkal group. Now that Zaby has been arrested, his interrogation will unravel several sensitive cases,” said a police officer.

‘Jundal helped plot German Bakery blast’ Zabihuddin Ansari alias Zaby alias Abu Jindal had allegedly played a vital role in the Pune German Bakery blast, in which an RDX bomb had killed 17 people. Sources in the security establishment said that Ansari had attended a meeting in a Colombo hotel where the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) merged with the Indian Mujahideen (IM). This was revealed while the police were interrogating the lone suspect arrested for the Pune blast, Mirza Himayat Baig.

“Baig told us that he was at a meeting in Colombo attended by senior IM functionaries like Fayyaz Kagazi and Zabihuddin Ansari, where the Pune blast was planned. That was where the conspirators made several modules of their recruits. On the one hand there was Kagazi and Zaby, while the other group was led by Riyaz Bhatkal and Iqbal Bhatkal, who are suspected to be in Pakistan. The Bhatkals are also wanted for their roles in the Ahmedabad, Delhi and 13/7 Mumbai blasts and foiled Surat blasts,” said a police source.

“The court will soon declare five people -- Fayyaz Kagzi, Mohsin Chaudhry, Yasin Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal and Riyaz Bhatkal -- as absconders in the Pune blast case and red-corner notices will be issued against them,” said a police officer. Mateen Hafeez | TNN VOICE OF TERROR

Abu Jundal taught the 10 26/11 terrorists Hindi in Pakistan and directed them from LeT’s Karachi control room during the attacks

Zabihuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal had been staying as Riasat Ali in Saudi Arabia under a Pakistani passport

He was deported from the Gulf on Monday and arrested on his arrival at Indira Gandhi International in New Delhi

Police will now take Zabihuddin’s voice samples and match them with Jundal’s voice on the 26/11 tapes

LONG-DISTANCE ATTACKER: Abu Jundal reportedly coordinated the Nariman House attack over the phone from Karachi throughout the night of November 27, 2008

VIOLENT ROAD: MAZALGAON TO KARACHI

Birth Of A Terrorist | Zabihuddin ‘Zaby’ Ansari was born on November 31, 1980 in a small village, Mazalgaon, in Beed district. He studied in the Urdu medium up to Class X and reportedly later studied at the Indian Technical Institute in Beed. He reportedly became an electrician. Ansari, however, remained jobless and became involved with the Students Islamic Movement of India. He first went for terror training to Pakistan in the mid-2000s and grew to conduct recruiting for terror outfits like the Indian Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toiba. He also visited Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. He has gone by the aliases Abu Jundal and Riasat Ali

26/11: CALLING THE SHOTS As Abu Jundal, Zabihuddin Ansari is accused of being the lone Indian in the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s control room in Karachi from where the 26/11 attackers were guided. Police say that Jundal instructed terrorists Babar Imran and Nasir, who attacked Nariman House (Chabad House) in Colaba. The attack began at around 9.45 pm on November 26, 2008 and continued till 7 pm on November 28. Nine people, including the rabbi of the Jewish group, his wife and an NSG commando, were killed. Jundal reportedly told the terrorists that 26/11 was just a ‘trailer’ of what was to come. Police will now match Ansari’s voice sample with Jundal’s to verify he is the same person. Jundal used Voice Over Internet Protocol to talk to the terrorists

COLD-BLOODED MURDER Transcript of conversation between Pakistan-based Abu Jundal, a handler of the 26/11 terrorists, and a terrorist at Chabad House:

Handler: Remember that every one person you kill there is like taking 50 lives…

H: Listen.

Terrorist: Yes, yes.

H: Get rid of these people. Kill them.

T: By Allah’s wish it is all quiet. There is no movement.

H: No, no wait. Shoot. If firing starts, you won’t know the timing, direction and intensity.

T: I’ve run out of grenades.

H: Do it.

T: What? Shoot them?

H: Yes. Make them sit up and shoot them in the backs of their heads.

(Later) H: Have you done the job or not?

T: No, I will do it front of you. I was waiting for you.

H: Do it in the name of Allah. (Woman screams: Please don’t kill me!)

H: You killed one?

T: Both together.

T: Allah willing, today is Friday. Today will be the final fight.

H: Use all of your might. Do it. Shoot them. Get them.

T: Intense fire has started. Firing has started in our room.

H: Take cover. (A little later) H: Yes, what happened?

T: I’ve been hit.

H: Where?

T: In my side and on my leg.

H: May Allah protect you.

T: Pray for me, so that I attain martyrdom.

AURANGABAD ARMS HAUL On May 6, 2006, the police chased two vehicles on the Manmad-Chandvad highway and stopped one of them, a Tata Sumo, in Aurangabad district. Three men trying to flee were arrested and 30kg RDX, 13 AK-47s and 3,200 live bullets were recovered. However, Zabihuddin Ansari escaped in the second car, an Indica. On May 9, the police arrested three men while they were driving the Indica in Malegaon. 13kg RDX was recovered from the vehicle. Over the next few days, 3 more AK-47s were recovered from an electronics shop in Malegaon and 50 hand grenades from Ankai village. 21 youths were arrested and the trial is on

HUNTING ABU JUNDAL
When Mohammad Ahmad Khwaja, a HuJI activist from Hyderabad, was arrested in Chennai in early 2010, he told police that Abu Jundal was the alias of Zabihuddin Ansari, a Lashkar operative from Maharashtra

Abu Jundal was thought to be the lone Indian in the LeT control room in Karachi during the 26/11 attacks
Interrogators were alerted to the possibility of an Indian being in the Karachi control room after Jindal used the word ‘prashasan’— ‘administration’ in Hindi—while instructing the Nariman House terrorists

Khwaja identified Ansari after hearing recordings of the conversation during the 26/11 attacks between Jundal and the terrorists at Chhabad House

At the time intel agencies were not 100% sure if Ansari was Abu Jundal. They suspected that Jundal could have been the alias of fugitive Indian LeT jihadi Abdul Aziz Gidda

Ajmal Kasab, the gunman given the death penalty in the 26/11 case, said in his deposition before a special court that a person named Abu Jundal taught the 10 terrorists Hindi

CASE FILE | Zabihuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal is accused in the following

cases: 1: 26/11 Mumbai attacks,

2: Aurangabad arms haul,

3: German Bakery blast in Pune,

4: Train blast in Ahmedabad of 2006, and

5: A forgery case