In a shocking revelation, The Goan has unearthed that theGoa police has put two critical CID reports, which could have led to trackingand nabbing the elusive Chief operative of the Indian Mujahideen Yasin Bhatkalaka Muhammad Ahmed Zarar Siddibapa in cold storage. This happened during theprevious regime when Ravi Naik was the home minister of Goa.
What assumes significance is that Zarar’s (Yasin Bhatkal’s)presence in the Baina, Vasco area has been recorded three times in threesuccessive months, June, July and August of 2009, ahead of the Pune Germanbakery blasts in February 2010
In June, Zarar and his associates came for a spot of“recruiting” boys and sent then to Mumbai. On July 21, they and four Saudinationals had a closed door meeting at a private residence late at night.
The second CID report further states, that Zarar was back onAugust 10, 2009 with one Saudi national and visited a construction site. Twowomen accompanied them. He spent that night in Hotel Supreme in Vasco.
Bhatkal, wanted in almost all the IM blasts for his role ofconspirator, logistics head and also the key recruiter, had according to theCID reports, (copies in the possession of The Goan), recruited 12-15 boys inthe age group of 20 to 25 years from Bhatkal (in Karnataka, Yasin’s home town)and Baina, Vasco and sent them to Mumbai. These boys are still missing. Theseboys, the report stated were recruited “for some purpose”, by Zarar andassociates and sent at an unknown place in Mumbai”. The report wonders “tilldate, no one is aware where the boys are and what are they doing. And whetherthey are in Mumbai or elsewhere”.
A six page internal report compiled and submitted by crimebranch officials in early August 2009 outlines how Zarar, his brother Yakub andfour Saudi nationals visited the area around Shafi Masjid in Baina on July 212009 and were closeted in a secretmeeting at the residence of a Bainalocal for over three hours.
While the Mumbai ATS and other intelligence agencies haveconfirmed that Mohammad Ahmad Zarar Siddibappa is Yasin Bhatkal, the CID officials here see box)realised this after the Pune best bakery blasts on February 13, 2010 whenpictures of Yasin Bhatkal as the key conspirator were released. “I realisedthat this was the same Zarar who I had seen in Baina, who had recruited theyouth”, the officer who compiled the report, told The Goan in confidence.
CID sources also confirm that not only were the reports notacted upon, the crucial inputs were not shared with the Mumbai ATS or theKarnataka police. The crime branch’s report also makes a mention of the factthat it had classified information that Zarar and his family members wereinterrogated by Mumbai ATS in mid-2008. Zarar, who was not supposed to traveloutside Karnataka, did so without informing Karnataka Police. Why wasn’t GoaPolice aware of the whereabouts of a terror accused under judicial restrainingorders?
Bhatkals name first cropped up in 2008, after the arrest ofIM operatives from Pune and Mangalore, with his “significant status” in IMbeing detailed by Mohammed Akbar Ismail Chaudhary, brother of another wanted IMoperative Mohsin Chaudhary. Yasin Bhatkals knack of having adapted to differentschools of bomb-making and also his network of indoctrinated informers who helphim flee within minutes of a blast, has made him invaluable to the terrornetwork.
In the Mumbai 13/7 (2011) serial blast, the ATS claims thatBhatkal had personally given the explosives and the detonators to co-accusedNadeem to be delivered to Mumbai. He was also reportedly present in the cityduring July to “commission the bomb”.
The Goa police needs to answer why these reports were notjust ignored, but suppressed.
