Breaking Indian Mujahideen is the key: IB

The roots of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) which has claimed responsibility for every terror strike since the Uttar Pradesh serial blasts is becoming a serious threat to the security of the country. The Intelligence Bureau says this outfit of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India is aggressive by nature.

While security agencies in the country are hell bent upon cracking the IM code, the interrogations of Safdar Nagori, Shahbaz Husain, Yahya Kamakutty, and Peedical Shibly will be important to make inroads into this outfit.

While Safdar Nagori is considered to be the brain behind the IM, investigators are also looking into the role played by Rasool Khan Party who according to the IB is in Pakistan. It is believed that Rasool Khan who took over India operations from Shahid Bilal is funding the IM. The IB says that they will have to interrogate Nagori further to find out the links between Rasool Khan and the IM.

The role played by Yahya Kamakutty and Peedical Shibly in setting up the Indian Mujahideen is also being probed by investigating agencies. Both Kamakutty and Shibly were IT professionals and the IB said that the two played a major role in recruiting young IT professionals into the IM. While Shibly was in charge of Kerala, Kamakutty took care of operations in Bangalore.

Nagori in his confession said that he was looking to recruit more and more IT professionals into SIMI as he believed that these persons were low-key, good planners and could execute operations with precision.

The IB says that the arrest of Shahbaz Hussain in connection with the Jaipur blasts is very important in cracking the IM code. According to an IB dossier, the Lucknow-based Hussain was in charge of recruiting people into the IM from the Northern part of the country. It is said that Hussain operated mainly from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Rajasthan.

The IB has put his two establishments, Snazzy Computers and Zyna Career Consultants,  under the scanner as they believe that a large part of the recruitments took place through these outfits. Hussain, nicknamed Shaanu, joined SIMI when he was doing journalism in 2001. From here he was put in charge of recruiting and planning terror strikes in the northern part of India, the IB also says.

Investigators will also look to get information on Subhan Qureshi from Hussain.

Qureshi, according to investigators, is a key person in SIMI and is responsible for training several youth across the country in bomb-making.

The IB says that Subhan had conducted several training camps Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat on the instructions of Hussain. There are also reports that Subhan had conducted a training camp in Hubli, Karnataka early last year.

The statement given by Riazuddin Nasir, the SIMI operative arrested in Karnataka is a testimony that Subhan had conducted a training camp in Hubli. He had said that they had assembled several bombs during this camp and it is now believed that some of them may have been used in the Bangalore and Ahmedabad serial blasts.