HYDERABAD: Fresh inputs trickling in on Viqar Ahmed, the man who daringly opened fire at a police party and escaped from the Old City recently, suggest that he was chosen as an ‘alternative’ to Muhammed Shahed alias Bilal, the self-styled commander of Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al-Islami (HuJI), who was reportedly shot dead by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in Karachi last year.
Viqar, police sources said, was instructed to set up a sound network in Hyderabad, just like Bilal had done earlier, so that the HuJI had its presence in the city and could strike at will.
Viqar, along with at least four of his associates, opened fire at the sleuths of the Counter Intelligence Cell and escaped when the police team had cornered him and was all set to pick him up from Kanchanbagh a few days ago.
In a related development, the Kanchanbagh police on Wednesday transferred Viqar’s case to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Central Crime Station.
“Viqar was trained in Bangladesh where there is a tie-up between HuJI and the Lashkar- e-Toiba (LeT) groups. The inputs suggest that Viqar had established himself firmly in HUJI and was among the top-ranking cadres of the organisation. The very fact that he was moving around with so much security and weapons was a clear indication of his position and power,’’ top police sources disclosed to Express.
They said that the day Viqar made good his escape from the city, the follow-up exercise done by various agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, on Viqar revealed that he was being ‘groomed’ to take the place of Bilal who is believed to have been shot dead in August last year after he became “too big to handle’’.
“After Bilal’s purported death, HuJI was looking for someone in Hyderabad who could recruit youngsters, send them for training, had technical expertise and could execute the plans of the terror group in the State as and when required, and Viqar fit the bill,’’ the sources said, adding that Viqar and Bilal knew each other even before Bilal vanished from the city in 2004.
Though the sleuths are still not sure whether Viqar, known to be an expert in using computers and changing his guise in no time, had sent some Muslim youth for training across the borders, investigation is going on to dig out the background of all those who have disappeared from the Old City in the last couple of years and whether they knew Viqar.
When the Special Investigation Cell (SIC) was probing the bomb blasts (Mecca Masjid and the twin blasts at Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat), Viqar’s name surfaced. “The SIC had then gone to his house and seized a desktop which contained anti-India propaganda and jehadi literature.
When his father Mohammed Ahmed was asked about Viqar’s whereabouts, he feigned ignorance. He said that Viqar had left home but did not inform them where he was going, sources said.
