AHMEDABAD: Nearly three decades after the Bombay serial bomb blasts, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has arrested four persons from Sardarnagar in Ahmedabad for their alleged involvement in one of India’s worst terror attacks.
An ATS officer said the four — Abu Bakar, Saiyyad Qureshi, Yusuf Bhatka, and Shoib Qureshi — were detained initially and later booked for possessing forged passports. They were later sent to eight-day police custody by a court.
“Abu Bakar was using the identity of Javed Basha from Karnataka while Saiyyad Qureshi had taken the alias of Saiyyad Sharif from Chennai. Shoib Qureshi and Yusuf Bhatka posed as Saiyyad Yasin from Karnataka and Yusuf Ismail from Mumbai. After their real identity was revealed, we found that they were involved in the 1993 serial bomb blasts,” ATS Deputy Superintendent Kanu K Patel said.
Over 250 people were killed and another 700 were injured in the series of coordinated blasts that had shaken India’s financial capital on March 12, 1993. The four had travelled to Pakistan for weapons training and had left India after the terror attack, Patel said.
“They earlier worked in the gang of Mumbai-based smuggler Mohammad Dossa from 1980 to 1990. Later, they got in touch with Dawood Ibrahim. In February 1993, they travelled to the Middle East and met Dawood,’’ he said. ‘‘On Dawood’s instruction, they reached Pakistan illegally to get trained on handling weapons and improvised explosives with the help of Pakistan spy agency ISI.”
After the serial blasts, Abu Bakar was responsible for disposing of a consignment of weapons that had arrived via sea route in Maharashtra. “The four accused then forged documents to make passports and went to Middle East countries such as Saudi Arabia and Oman. They recently returned to India and had come to Ahmedabad,” Patel said.
ATS officials said that the four accused will be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the high-profile case after their remand period gets over.