Mohammed Asghar Ali, prime accused in the March 26 murder of former Gujarat minister of state for home Haren Pandya, committed the offence to avenge the massacre of Muslims during the Gujarat riots of 2002, the Andhra Pradesh police have claimed.
They say Ali and his gang also attempted, unsuccessfully, to murder another Bharatiya Janata Party politician in Gujarat.
According to police records in Andhra Pradesh, Ali is a habitual offender with a string of cases registered against him.
The son of a retired police sub-inspector, Ali's tryst with crime began with a petty offence in his home town Nalgonda in 1991. Later, he joined a gang led by Fasiuddin which took to attacking karsevaks from the state who had participated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in December 1992. One of the largest contingents of karsevaks had come from Andhra Pradesh.
When police shot Fasiuddin dead in an encounter in 1993, Ali allegedly vowed to avenge his mentor.
Police say he engineered the escape of notorious communal offender Mirza Fayaz Baig from the Nampally criminal courts in the state capital Hyderabad in December 1996.
Baig was involved in the killing of BJP corporator Nandraj Goud, who had also participated in the kar seva in Ayodhya. He was subsequently shot dead in an encounter with the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
Ali and another accomplice were found to possess two revolvers at Mungode in Nalgonda district in 1997. He was also allegedly party to a series of bomb blasts perpetrated by Azam Ghori, an agent of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, in the state in 2000. Ali was also found to possess explosives, including the deadly RDX, at Dabeerpura in Hyderabad in 2000.
After jumping bail two years ago, Ali secured two fake passports from Kerala and Maharashtra and went to Dubai where he is believed to have got in touch with ISI operatives. In October 2002, he even went to Pakistan for special training in subversive activities, police claimed.
Ali is also believed to have lived in the Kashmir valley for some time in the 1990s where he committed several crimes with the help of ISI associates. He reportedly underwent training in handling arms and explosives during his stay there and developed close ties with ISI-sponsored terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.
The police say that after his return from Dubai about six weeks ago, Ali reportedly got in touch with Iftekhar, an old accomplice. They roped in another close friend from Nalgonda, Mohammed Abdul Bari, and went to Ahmedabad, where they planned the crime meticulously. They studied Pandya's movements and worked out every detail. According to the police, Ali fired the shots that killed Pandya.
According to the Andhra police, following is the full list of 13 criminal cases in which Ali was involved:
The Andhra Pradesh police say warrants are pending against Ali in various courts and cases. Moreover, the three others accused of Pandya's murder also have criminal records, with one of them having close links with the ISI.
M A Raoof and two of his associates were booked under FIR #33/2000 at the Saidabad police station in Hyderabad for possessing explosives. He also figured in a conspiracy case relating to a series of bomb blasts in theatres in Hyderabad and Metpally in Andhra Pradesh and Nanded in Maharashtra vide FIR #39/2000 booked by the criminal investigation department of the Andhra police under sections 120(B) and 153 (provocation to cause riots) of the IPC.
Along with Asghar Ali and others, Raoof was also allegedly involved in a blast in a hotel, which was registered under FIR #1/2000 at the Moghulpura police station.
Another of the accused men, M A Bari, figured with Asghar Ali and five others in FIR #207/96 relating to Fayaz Baig's escape from court.