HYDERABAD: His Idols: Shahi Badr Falahi, a top leader of the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Muhammed Shahed Alias Bilal, the self-styled commander of Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al-Islami and Moulana Naseeruddin, chief of fundamentalist outfit Tehreek-Tehfooz Sharia-e-Islam (TTSI) and Shaik Mahboob Ali, the founder of another fundamentalist outfit Darsgah-Jihad-O-Shahadat (DJS).
His enemy: Policemen.
His Goal: To kill at least one policemen on Mecca Masjid blast anniversary every year.
>>Related Story: Viqar Had Links with SIMI?
What kept him going: Endless discussions on alleged atrocities against his community, particulary Babri masjid demolition and Godhra riots. This is in a nutshell what Viqaruddin Ahmed was all about. As a youngster, he would often pose with toy guns and as he grew up, he turned into a sharpshooter. Police officials, who kept track of his background and his association with terror, disclosed to Express that his journey to ‘jihad’ began after he joined DJS and as a youngster, participated in several protest rallies against Babri masjid demolition on every December 6, the day the mosque was brought down in 1992. In these rallies, Viqar would often pose with a toy AK-47. In DJS camps in the Old City of Hyderabad, he was trained in use of lathi and self- defence techniques. For sometime, he ran a video games shop but ran into losses and he shut it down.
After being in the company of some fundamentalists based in communally sensitive Saidabad, Viqar learnt about Bilal and how he escaped to Bangladesh and then to Pakistan and worked for HUJI. Bilal was suspected to have been shot dead in Karachi, Pakistan in 2007, days after the Gokul chat bhandar and Lumbini twin bomb blasts.
‘’Once he told his friends that he would take the place of Bilal but his growing friendship with fundamentalists brought him under the radar of the Hyderabad police. He also knew that the police were watching his activities,’’ a top police official said. Known to have a sound knowledge of computers and a master of disguises, something that SIMI cadres are well trained in, Viqar, then 26 and Intermediate dropout, left home telling his family that he was going to Chennai for a job.
Besides taking part in the activities of TTSI and DJS, Viqar was inspired by the speeches of Shahi Badr Falahi, a top SIMI leader and began to circulate the CDs of his speeches to ‘like minded’ youngsters in the Old City. ‘‘He attended several religious programmes organised in the house of Moulana Naseeruddin in which several SIMI cadres used to be present.’’ Some inputs even suggested that Viqar had established contact with Rasool Khan Patty, a Gujarati who fled to Pakistan and joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba ranks. ‘’He had some links in Ahmedabad and he visited the city and shot dead a policeman who tried to resist a robbery attempt.’’
Interestingly, Viqar managed to attend some press conferences of the then Hyderabad police commissioner, south zone DCP among others, using fake identity cards. Viqar opened fire killing three policemen and used a 9mm and .22 mm country made pistols which he is said to have procured from some other state.
