 Rehman (second from right), suspected militant of the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (Huji), who was arrested by the Special Branch of the Delhi police on Wednesday. At his instance, the police recovered 3.1 kg of RDX on Thursday. |
Rehman, at whose instance the Special Cell seized 3.1 kg RDX, five detonators and a timer device from Janakpuri in West Delhi in the early hours of Thursday, is also suspected to be involved in the Varanasi blasts in March 2006.
At a press conference here on Thursday, Joint Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Karnal Singh said RehmanÂ’s name had cropped up during interrogation of alleged HuJI militants Jalalluddin alias Babu Bhai and Naushad, who were arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force with an RDX consignment and an AK series assault rifle last June.
The Special Cell, which suspected RehmanÂ’s involvement in the Samjhauta Express blast in February 2007, had traced his residence to Shamli in Muzaffarnagar, but he escaped to Bangladesh. Acting on a tip-off by the Central Intelligence that he would reach Delhi on a train from Howrah after crossing the India-Bangladesh border, the police arrested him on Chelmsford Road around 8.30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Rehman purportedly disclosed that he had hidden a consignment of RDX near a ‘madrasa’ in D-Block of Janakpuri. He told the interrogators that Qamar alias Nata, the Bangladesh-based HuJI commander, had sent him to Delhi to hand over the explosives to a module that was to carry out blasts here.
Mr. Singh said Rehman was initiated into terrorism after he came in contact with Babu Bhai in 2002. The same year, Babu Bhai and Rehman went to Bangladesh and then to Pakistan using forged Bangladeshi passports. In Pakistan, Rehman allegedly underwent a three-month specialised training in manufacturing improvised explosive devices and handling of weapons.
Rehman then returned to India via Bangladesh and on NataÂ’s directions, started motivating young men from different parts of U.P. to join the outfit. He had allegedly sent Naushad, a resident of Bijnaur, to Pakistan for training. Rehman remained underground all the while working as a maulana in different mosques of western U.P., said Mr. Singh.
According to Mr. Singh, in mid-2005, Nata directed Rehman to shift base to Delhi and he started working as a maulana in a mosque at Dabri in south-west Delhi and arranged hideouts for the HuJI terrorists. During this period, Nata and Babu Bhai visited him several times to discuss safe transportation and storage of explosives and also plan out terrorist strikes. In January-February 2007, Babu Bhai handed over 10 kg of RDX to a HuJI militant Rocky alias Guru, from which 3.1 kg of the high explosive was given to Rehman, Mr. Singh said.
After Babu Bhai and Naushad were arrested, the plan to carry out blasts in Delhi was postponed and Rehman buried the RDX in Janakpuri and fled to U.P. where he kept changing his hideout. Nata then directed him to receive a militant named Shabbir Ahmad, but Shabbir was arrested by the Special Cell last July at Chandni Chowk here.
To evade arrest, Rehman sneaked into Bangladesh last October where he stayed with Nata at Rajshahi and allegedly took training in the assembling of timers using watches along with two other militants. “We are trying to identify the other two,” said Mr. Singh. Incidentally, watches were used as a timer device in the Jaipur blasts.
A Jaipur police team is expected to join the interrogation soon.