Kerala terrorist reveals LeT’s Dhaka link

Apart from Hyderabad and Kashmir, Bangladesh capital Dhaka also prominently figures in the network of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba operators in Kerala, investigating officials have learnt. According to information with them, Nazeer of Neerchal in Kannur, one of the key planners behind the blasts carried out by Indian Mujahiddeen last year in Indian cities, had escaped to Dhaka after four Malayalee terrorists were killed in Kashmir.

The Karnataka Police learned about these during interrogation in Bangalore of Oman-based terror man Sarfaras Nawaz of Ernakulam district, who had allegedly raised the funds for the IM blasts in India. Nawaz had also told the Karnataka Police that the Bangalore blasts also were carried out under the plan and command of the LeT.

Nazeer aka Ummer Haji, for whom the Anti-Terror Squad of the Kerala Police had been on an intense manhunt since last October, was the local engineer behind the Bangalore blasts, Nawaz told the police. He also told them that Nazeer, working directly under the LeT command from Pakistan, was assigned the Bangalore operation by one Wali alias Shameem aka Rehan, a Pakistani in-charge of LeT’s Gulf region.

Nawaz told the police that Nazeer had gone into hiding after the killing of four Malayalee militants from Kerala in Loab valley in Kupwara, Kashmir, in the second week of October. His assumption was that Nazeer had escaped to Dhaka via Kolkata on November 18 or 19, living underground till then in Karnataka and Maharashtra,

According to Nawaz’s statement to the police, Nazeer had told him that he had reached the haven in Dhaka safely and that the Bangladesh capital had ideal conditions for their smooth operations. Intelligence officials were of the assumption that Nazeer could have gone to Pakistan from Dhaka by now.

Nawaz told the police that there was a plan to carry out bombings in Chennai city also. However, this plan was dropped in the last minute on the instructions of Wali, who had arranged the funds for the blast. He was also the supervisor for the operation, Nawaz said in his statement.

He said that Wali was interested in taking other Kerala youth, apart from Nawaz himself, for training to Pakistan and that he had reminded him of this plan in all their meetings. The instructions for carrying out the bombings in Bangalore were given by Wali at such a meeting in Sharjah in February 2008, Nawaz told the Karnataka Police.

Nawaz said in his statement to the police that Wali had instructed Nazeer not to have any direct participation in the Bangalore bombing and also to leave the city well before the blasts. He said that he had visited the Garden City with Nazeer to select the areas for setting off the explosions.

Nawaz, who had gone to Muscat some eight years ago to work as an instructor with a computer training centre, had reportedly been taken into custody by the Oman Police in connection with some other case in November last. He had then sent his family back to Kerala and was staying alone in Muscat.

He had reportedly stayed in Uttar Pradesh for a year after school education and it was perhaps during this period he had got in touch with SIMI. Nawaz was brought from Muscat to India by officials of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) on March 5.