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The Print
23-07-2025
- Politics
- The Print
Pakistani accomplices, shootouts, sealed chargesheet—how the 7/11 blasts case fell apart
This week, 19 years on, the Bombay High Court finally held what successive governments, police services, and the intelligence services themselves have long known : The five men sent to death row for their role in the bombings, and the seven others given shorter sentences, had nothing to do with the bombing. The Maharashtra government has announced it will appeal —but disturbing evidence will surface that the botched trial has enabled the terrorists actually responsible for the crime to evade responsibility. Later that evening, on 11 July 2006, 209 people died—far more than on 26/11—when the bombs went off in packed first-class compartments on seven separate trains running from Churchgate. The men gathered early one morning in a one-room tenement inside the Deccan Cooperative Society in Sewri, on the grimy eastern fringes of suburban Mumbai. They began packing ammonium nitrate-fuel oil gel, the lethal but readily available commercial explosive used across India, inside 35-kilogram pressure cookers. Then, a detonator cap was loaded into each pressure cooker and linked to a simple Ajanta-brand digital clock, set to 6:30 pm. Each cooker was then packed in a shopping bag. Intelligence and police services at the time were struggling to detect the real workings of the Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked network that came to be known as the Indian Mujahideen. Therefore, following the 7/11 bombing, the usual suspects—generally men with loose ties to conservative Muslim groups—were pulled in and charged with terrorism, as was the pattern in several prosecutions from the period. Following the bombing of the Sankat Mochan Temple in Varanasi, as well as the local railway station, the Imam of the mosque at Phulpur was arrested and charged with the murder of 28 people. The Uttar Pradesh police alleged that Waliullah had handed over the explosives and the pressure cooker cases to three terrorists from Bangladesh, who were never identified. The Imam was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of an assault rifle and grenades. In 2022, he was sentenced to death for his alleged role in the bombing. The bombings—and the arrests—went on. Following bombings at Sarojini Nagar, Govindpuri, and Paharganj in October 2009, just a day before Diwali, Srinagar resident Mohammad Hussain Fazili was charged with organising the terrorist attacks. Together with his friend Mohammad Rafiq Shah, Fazili was later acquitted of all charges. A third man who had been arrested, Tariq Dar, was convicted of charges related to supporting terrorism but cleared of a role in the actual strike. Faking justice Five years ago, a court sentenced Kamal Ansari, Faisal Shaikh, Ehtesham Siddiqui, Naveed Khan, and Asif Khan to death for their role in the 11 July Mumbai train blasts. Seven other conspirators were handed down life sentences; just one alleged perpetrator, Wahid Sheikh, was acquitted. For the hundreds of families torn apart by one of the world's most savage acts of mass-casualty terrorism, the law seemed to have finally brought closure. There were strange elements in the prosecution's story, which surfaced on the margins of media reportage. The police claimed that the bombers had been accompanied by Pakistani accomplices, a mysterious Bollywood-ish touch never seen in past terror attacks. A Pakistani terrorist was shot dead in Mumbai's Antop Hill, but his ties to the case never surfaced in the trial. And then, there were the common-sense questions. The Govandi room, where the explosives were assembled according to police, barely had the space to seat four people, let alone the team of eight purported to have made bombs there, journalist Sagar Rajput reported. The questions turned to embarrassment in November 2007. Newsrooms across the country began receiving emails from an organisation calling itself the Indian Mujahideen—a term used to distinguish it from Pakistani groups, rather than a brand in itself. The emails were often sent seconds before terrorist attacks. The first email claimed responsibility for earlier attacks, including Varanasi in 2006, Hyderabad in August 2007, and the 7/11 Mumbai train bombings. Each of the emails cast the actions of the perpetrators as revenge for the 2002 communal massacre in Gujarat. The email issued after the Ahmedabad bombing of 26 July 2008, for example, said that the Indian Mujahideen was 'raising the illustrious banner of jihad against the Hindus and all those who fight and resist us.' Also read: Bihar ADG linking farmers to rising crime uncalled for. Data just doesn't support such claims Police under pressure Faking it isn't, of course, a uniquely Indian talent. The 'usual suspects' were also lined up in London after the bombs went off at the Horse and Groom, Seven Stars, and the King's Arms pubs. Paul Hill was identified by a British Army Intelligence Officer in Belfast, who noticed he had shoulder-length fair hair. The photograph the officer was looking at, though, was of two women survivors, not a perpetrator. Gerry Conlon was picked up based on past suspicion of ties to the Irish Republican Army, which were never proven. Patrick Armstrong and his girlfriend, Carole Richardson, were living in squats. 'The English language is rich in words, but no single one can adequately describe your crime,' Justice John Donaldson declared at sentencing. There was one he didn't consider: innocent. There were no worthwhile forensics, alibis were ignored, and credible claims of torture were dismissed. Later, when the Guildford Four had become middle-aged, an official investigation conducted by the British parliament would conclude: 'The material then in the possession of the Crown, including such explanations as the police officers concerned were then prepared to offer, cast such a real doubt upon the reliability and veracity of the evidence upon which the prosecution was founded that it was inevitable that the convictions should be regarded as unsafe.' The first serious challenge to the 7/11 case came from deep inside the Indian police system, when investigators at the Andhra Pradesh police's counter-terrorism unit decided to conduct a forensic analysis of the explosives. Each of the bombs, investigators concluded in an analysis available with ThePrint, used identical bomb-making techniques and materials, fitting a Samay-brand electrical clock, boosted with a nine-volt battery. 'As a practice,' the Andhra Pradesh investigators noted, 'they used red/yellow/brown wires for the positive wires and white/black wires for the negative terminal.' The Indian Mujahideen only once experimented with an alternative timer, using electrically-erasable programmable read-only memory, for 27 improvised explosive devices planted in Surat on 26 July 2008. The bombs fizzled—and the bomb-maker went back to doing things the old way. Later, in 2008, the Delhi police, acting on information provided by the Intelligence Bureau, stumbled into an apartment in Batla House, which housed the Indian Mujahideen's co-founder, Atif Ameen. Ameen was killed in the shootout, together with Delhi police officer Mohan Chand Sharma. The top leadership of the Indian Mujahideen fled to Karachi, and then to the Islamic State in Syria, where Mohammad Sajid, Abu Rashid Ahmad, and Shahnawaz Alam are believed to have died in combat. The men, however, released a videotape claiming responsibility for their attacks, including the 7/11 train blasts, and warning of more. Also read: Can Syria's tiny Druze minority survive West Asia's new storms? There's little hope Truth is out there In the early 2010s, led by then-Superintendents of Police Vikas Vaibhav and Swayam Prakash Pani, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) began a comprehensive investigation into the Indian Mujahideen's genesis and metastasis. The inquiry focused on how a small group of Islamist youth activists from Azamgarh and Bhatkal, breaking away from the Students Islamic Movement of India, turned to organised crime groups to secure training with the Lashkar. The NIA didn't investigate the Mumbai case, since that was already under trial. In its 2014 chargesheet, though, the agency asserted, in a separate case, that 'the accused Asadullah Akhtar was aware of the participation of the members of his group in the Indian Mujahideen in the blasts at Sarojini Nagar, Delhi, in 2005, Mumbai train blasts in 2006, Gorakhpur blasts in 2007 and UP court blasts in 2007.' 'The Mumbai train blasts,' the chargesheet read, 'were carried out by Indian Mujahideen operatives including but not limited to Sadiq Sheikh, Bada Sajid [Big] Sajid, a nickname for Mohammad Sajid], Atif Ameen and Abu Rashid.' For its part, Maharashtra's Crime Branch had also filed a chargesheet on the 7/11 bombings, based on alleged Indian Mujahideen member Sadiq Israr Sheikh. That chargesheet remains sealed, without ever having been heard in court. A one-time air conditioning mechanic from Mumbai's Cheeta Camp, Sheikh said the Gujarat pogroms radicalised him. In search of vengeance, he sought out a relative with crime-world contacts, Salim Azmi. Azmi, in turn, introduced him to the ganglord Asif Reza Khan, who was sending the first Indian Mujahideen cadre to Pakistan. Later, in confessional testimony to the Gujarat Police—which cannot be used, according to Indian law, for his trial—Sheikh provided a graphic account of what happened in 7/11. 'I would go first with one bag to Churchgate, and keep the bag in the First Class compartment,' one of the men later told the NIA in a classified interrogation. 'I would get down at Marine Lines station, and then go back to Churchgate. Next, Atif would leave with two bags and also return to Churchgate. Abu Rashid and Sajid will take one bag each and keep the bags in the selected trains. Finally, Shahnawaz would come to Churchgate with two bags, and we would put both of them in the trains.' In April 2013, Sheikh appeared before the court, summoned by the defence to tell his story in the 7/11 case. He denied knowing the perpetrators, and claimed the Crime Branch had tortured him into confessing his role in the bombings. 'The story that you say was given by the Crime Branch,' a defence lawyer suggested to him, 'was not, in fact, a story but the factual position about the 7/11 railway blasts.' He did not lie: 'I do not want to answer this question.' Today, it's time someone does. Praveen Swami is Contributing Editor at ThePrint. His X handle is @praveenswami. Views are personal. (Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
Indian Express
14-07-2025
- Indian Express
7 accused in Bengaluru prison terror conspiracy case, including LeT-linked T Naseer, seek to plead guilty
Seven accused in the 2023 Bengaluru Central Prison terror conspiracy case, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked prime accused Thadiyantavide Naseer, 47, last week moved a court pleading guilty. The special court for terrorism cases in Bengaluru took on record the application filed by the seven accused to plead guilty in the case. The court noted the statement of the accused that the application was being filed 'voluntarily without any coercion or any influence from anyone'. Besides Naseer, the other six accused who pleaded guilty are Syed Suhail, 24; Mohammed Umar, 30; Zahid Tabrez, 27; Syed Mudassir Pasha, 29; Mohammed Faisal, 29; and Salman Khan, 29. The seven are among 12 people currently accused in the prison conspiracy case registered in 2023, which is being investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). They moved the application last week under Section 229 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The application allows the court to expedite the trial by convicting the accused based on their plea without a full trial. The seven are accused of being involved in a terrorism plot where the LeT-linked Naseer, who is an undertrial prisoner in the 2008 Bengaluru serial blasts case and a convict in a Kerala terrorism case, allegedly radicalised youths lodged in the prison in the 2017 to 2023 period to take up 'jihad' when they are released from prison. On July 8, a day after the seven accused moved the application to plead guilty, the NIA arrested three more people in the case: Anees Fathima, the mother of the absconding accused Junaid Ahmed; Dr Nagaraj S, a psychiatrist employed at the Bengaluru Central Prison; and Chan Pasha, an Assistant Sub-Inspector with the City Armed Reserve (CAR) in North Bengaluru. Fathima is accused of playing a role in facilitating financial transactions between various accused in the conspiracy case. ASI Pasha is accused of providing police escort details of Naseer to other accused on payment of bribes, and the psychiatrist Dr Nagaraj is accused of smuggling mobile phones to Naseer inside the prison facility. The NIA filed an initial chargesheet in the prison terrorism case in February 2024 against six people and later charges were framed against eight arrested accused in May 2025, after one suspect, Salman Khan, was extradited from Rwanda in November 2024, and another suspect, Vikram Kumar alias Chota Usman, who was arrested by the Delhi Special Cell in March 2021, was linked to the case. The NIA took over the investigation of the case in October 2023 after the Bengaluru police conducted the initial investigations. The probe agencies alleged that the accused procured arms, ammunition and digital devices for terrorist activities after they were radicalised in prison by Naseer. 'Naseer had orchestrated the radicalisation and subsequent criminal activities, including plans to facilitate his own escape en route to the court from the prison and a conspiracy to further the operations of the proscribed terrorist organisation LeT,' the NIA said last year. Naseer was arrested in 2009 by the Bengaluru police for the 2008 serial blasts in the city, which killed one person. He is among 18 members of the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) who were sentenced to seven years in 2018 by an NIA court in Kerala for being part of a terror training camp at Vagamon in Kerala in 2007. On July 18, 2023, shortly after receiving information from a central agency, the Bengaluru Central Crime Branch (CCB) police arrested five youths with a history of crime for alleged possession of seven country-made pistols, 45 live bullets, and for allegedly planning some form of terror attack in the future after being influenced by Naseer. Investigations of the communication and electronic devices seized from the accused revealed the transfer of funds from foreign shores to members of the arrested group in Bengaluru, said the police. The initial Bengaluru probe indicated that Naseer, who had been in prison for over 13 years, radicalised a few members of a group of 20 youths who were lodged in the Bengaluru Central Prison between 2017 and 2019 for the murder of a businessman in Bengaluru in October 2017. The police alleged that Naseer inspired Junaid Ahmed, 29, one of the 20 youths who were arrested in 2017 in the businessman murder case, to take up the cause of his religion and facilitated the creation of a terror module. Junaid Ahmed left the country for Dubai around 2021 and has not been traced yet. Several people who are accused in terror cases in Karnataka and lodged in prisons for prolonged periods before a trial have resorted to the strategy of pleading guilty to secure an early conviction and release from prison in the event of their having been in prison for periods that are close to the maximum imprisonment for offences. In a 2012 terror conspiracy case in which 13 Karnataka youths were arrested, the accused pleaded guilty during the trial process by moving an application under Section 229 of the CrPC. On September 15, 2016, a special court convicted the 13 of all the charges against them and sentenced them to five years in prison on the basis of the guilty plea. They were released in 2017 on completion of five years in prison.
The Hindu
09-07-2025
- The Hindu
NIA gets six-day custody of three accused in prison radicalisation case
A special court in Bengaluru has granted six-day custody of the three people arrested on Tuesday in connection with the 2023 prison radicalisation case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). On Wednesday, the NIA special court in Bengaluru remanded Anees Fathima, mother of Junaid Ahmed, accused number 2 in the case who is currently on the run; Nagaraj, psychiatrist, Bengaluru Central Prison; and Chand Pasha, assistant sub-inspector, City Armed Reserve, North, in the custody of the central agency. The arrests followed extensive raids at five locations in Bengaluru and Kolar districts by the NIA on Tuesday. The NIA suspects that Fathima acted as a contact person between her son Junaid and Tadiyandaveed Naseer, alias T. Naseer, a lifetime convict in terror cases, lodged in the central prison. Naseer is the accused number one in this case. The NIA claimed that Nagaraj smuggled mobile phones inside the prison for inmates, including Naseer. According to the NIA, Pasha used to pass on information about the escort of Naseer to various courts in Bengaluru in exchange for money, but it has not disclosed the recipients of the message. The case came to light in 2023 after the Bengaluru Central Crime Branch (CCB) police arrested five people in northern Bengaluru. The five were said to be associates of Junaid, who had multiple criminal cases against him, including that of hatching a terror conspiracy to carry out 'explosions' in Bengaluru. The CCB had seized four grenades and eventually arrested one more person who had handed over the grenades near T. Begur to the arrested accused. According to police sources, 12 people, including Junaid and the five accused, were arrested in 2017 by the R.T. Nagar police in connection with the murder of a businessman. According to the sources, when Junaid and his men were in judicial custody at the central prison, they came in contact with Naseer, a Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked convict, who is accused of having radicalised them. Junaid was again accused in a red sanders smuggling case in 2021; ever since, he has been absconding, according to the police.
Hindustan Times
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
‘Million Abdul Raufs in Pakistan': Ex-minister Hina Rabbani Khar exposed on live TV over terrorist's funeral photo
Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan's former foreign minister, faced an awkward moment on live TV when she tried to portray a designated terrorist as a "common man", only to be promptly fact-checked by the host. Former Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar during her interview with Al Jazeera, where she was fact-checked over remarks dismissing a US-designated terrorist's identity in a viral funeral image.(AFP and a screengrab from 'X') In an interview with Al Jazeera, Hina Rabbani Khar was defending Pakistan's position on Hafiz Abdur Rauf, a US-sanctioned global terrorist seen leading the funeral procession of terrorists killed in India's Operation Sindoor on May 7. The journalist then presented a widely circulated photograph of Rauf, the same photo was part of key evidence in India's global outreach in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 people. Trying to prove the claims as wrong, Khar insisted the man in the now-viral funeral image was not the Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked figure wanted by the US. She said, "There are a million Abdul Raufs in Pakistan." 'I am telling you, with authority, with evidence which has been shared with the whole world, that this is not the man that you (India) are claiming it to be. That is not the man you are claiming it to be,' she said, holding up the photo as part of her argument. Anchor counters with facts, ID match But the interview took a sharp turn when the news channel's anchor confronted her with evidence linking the man in the photo to the US-designated terrorist. The journalist said her and the Pakistan military's statements are different. 'They (Pakistan army) said that he's a member of a political party, and they released his national ID number. That ID number is the same one as on the US sanctions list. So, according to the US sanctions terrorist list, this man is a terrorist,' the journalist said, exposing the contradiction in Pakistan's narrative. Cornered by the evidence, Khar scrambled to draw a distinction between the individual defended by the Pakistani military and the person on the US blacklist. 'The Pakistani army is defending this man (in viral photo). The Pakistani army is not defending the person who is proscribed by the US,' she argued. However, the interviewer immediately pointed out that the identity card released by Pakistan's own army matched the ID number listed on the US sanctions list—leaving little room for denial. ISPR's details match US database After India's operation on Pakistan's terror hubs, at a press conference in May, Pakistan's Director General ISPR Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry had confirmed the man seen in the funeral video is named Hafiz Abdur Rauf. 'This man is Hafiz Abdur Rauf, who is leading the prayers. He has three daughters, a son, and he was born in March 1973. You can see his family details and everything,' Chaudhry said. Also Read | Who is Hafiz Abdul Rauf, man leading funeral of terrorists killed in Operation Sindoor? While he described the man as an ordinary Pakistani, the ID number and personal details presented by ISPR match those listed in the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions database. India cited the development as further proof of the nexus between Pakistan's state agencies and internationally sanctioned terrorist groups. A statement from India's Press Information Bureau at that time, said, 'The identity details shared by DG ISPR completely overlap with the details of Hafiz Abdur Rauf, a member of LeT's senior leadership since at least 1999 and part of the US Sanctions List.' Top officials attend funeral of slain terrorists Rauf, a close aide of 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, is also the former head of the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), an LeT front organisation banned in several countries. The funeral was held at the Lashkar-e-Taiba headquarters in Muridke, Punjab. Photographs and video footage show senior Pakistani police and military officials in attendance. A ceremonial wreath was sent by Punjab chief minister Maryam Nawaz, the niece of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Rauf is listed under various aliases and addresses in the OFAC database, including locations across Lahore such as 4 Lake Road, Choburji Dola Khurd, Jinnah Block, and Chamberlain Road. He held Pakistani passports CM1074131 and A7523531, issued in 2008 and expired in 2013 — details that further confirm his identity as per international records.
Time of India
03-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Shashi Tharoor Blasts China for Shielding Pak Terror Group at UN
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has slammed China for backing Pakistan in removing a key terror reference from a UN Security Council statement. During his visit to Brazil as part of an Indian delegation, Tharoor criticized Beijing for helping shield the Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked Resistance Front. He revealed that India had repeatedly flagged the group with the UN Sanctions Committee, but China's support to Pakistan ensured that RF's name was removed from the final press statement. In a sharp remark, Tharoor said, 'We are not on the Security Council, and neither are you. We have to change that.' Watch the full video for the explosive details from Brazil, diplomatic fallout, and what this means for India's global anti-terror efforts.#shashitharoor #chinapakistan #unscterrorshield #resistancefront #lashkaretaiba #unpressstatement #indiabrazildelegation #crossborderterrorism #tharoorchinacriticism #pakistanterrorlinks #unscpolitics #tharoorlatestspeech #chinablocksunaction #terrorisminsouthasia #unitednationsnews #toi #toibharat
