BHOPAL: A BAMS doctor running a private clinic in Nanded district of Maharashtra has been arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police anti-terror squad (MPATS) for sending a threatening letter along with white powder to 2008 Malegaon blast accused-turned-BJP MP from Bhopal Pragya Singh Thakur, police sources here confirmed on Saturday.
Primary police investigations based on initial questioning of the arrested doctor Sayyed Abdul Rahman Khan (35) revealed that he had sent the envelope containing the threatening letter written in Urdu and the pouch containing the white powder and other documents to the Bhopal residence of the Lok Sabha MP to implicate his brother and mother in a false terror case.
The doctor who runs a private clinic in Itwara area of Nanded district wanted to see his brother behind bars as over a month back, he was arrested by the Itwara police in an attempt to murder case lodged against him by his brother.
After coming out on bail, Khan hatched the conspiracy to frame his brother in a false case. To further ensure that his brother who lived in Pune was arrested for sending the envelope, Khan went to Pune and posted the envelope from there. Also, he sent in the envelope copies of his brother’s documents as well as mother’s photo identity card to lead the MP cops to his brother.
“It’s not the first time the man arrested by MP ATS on Thursday evening had written such letters to frame his brother and possibly mother also. In the past too, he had written similar letters to various politicians and government officials to falsely implicate his mother and brother for having terror links. A month back he was arrested for assaulting his brother and was out on bail in the case, when the MP ATS probe led to his arrest,” in-charge of Nanded’s Itwara police station Pradeep Kakade told The New Indian Express on Saturday.
To avoid being tracked by police, the young doctor posted the earlier letters from outside Nanded for which he travelled to other towns of Maharashtra, including Nagpur, Pune and Aurangabad. Originally a native of rural Dhanegaon area of Nanded district, Khan left his phone at home, whenever he went to other towns to post the letters, to prevent the cops from tracking his actual location.
The envelope was sent to Thakur’s residence in Bhopal in October 2019, while she was out of Bhopal, but it was opened on Monday (January 13) as all personal letters addressed to the Lok Sabha member are opened in her presence only.
Thakur told journalists on Monday night that the envelope contained some chemical adhesive which caused a burning sensation. The white powder was packed in a plastic pouch and kept in the same envelope. She lodged a complaint with the Kamla Nagar police in Bhopal under Sections 326 and 507 of IPC.
The letter written in Urdu mentioned a group called Ansarul Musalmeen whose men had been assigned the task to eliminate Thakur and later carry out 26/11 and Pulwama style terror attacks. In the same letter, the doctor had said that his brother was among those assigned the task. The letter also mentioned his mother and her wish to harm Thakur, besides the arrest of an innocent man (himself) in an attempt to murder case in the recent past, informed sources in the MP police said.
The contents of the letter and the arrested doctor’s questioning also suggested that he had meticulously hatched the conspiracy to implicate his brother and mother in a false terror case for which he was keeping track of all developments related to Thakur. The letter mentioned Thakur’s nearly decade long jail stay, her controversial remarks on Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse and ex Mumbai ATS chief as well as her remarks about the opposition using mysterious tricks to assassinate senior BJP leaders.