A day after the Delhi High Court acquitted two persons and convicted one person in the Sarojini Nagar blasts case of 2005, sleuths of the Special Cell, who were part of the investigation, told The Pioneer how they had carried out a detailed investigation, collating the disclosure report of the accused with the evidence. The two phone calls made by Tariq Ahmad Dar to Abu-Al Qama were intercepted by security agencies immediately after the blasts. The transcripts proved how Dar along with Mohammad Rafiq Shah and Mohammad Hussain had carried out the blasts.
Dar had received Rs five lakh in his bank account on October 31, 2005, two days after the blasts. This money was transferred for having carried out the blasts that had killed 67 people and injured 220 people in Delhi.
Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Cell said, “I am not satisfied but I respect the verdict and will go through the copy of the court order thoroughly. If the need arises, the Special Cell will seek assistance from higher courts in the country.”
Refusing to term it as a shoddy probe post the acquittal of the two men, the senior police officers of the Special Cell said that there was no gap in the investigation. “All necessary steps were taken. The accused-Tariq Ahmed Dar knew code names given by Abu Ozefa. Moreover, we proved that terror funding had happened and that Tariq had excess of money apart from the salary which he withdrew as an employee of Johnson & Johnson. Dar joined the organisation in 2001 and till 2005. In 2005, when Dar was arrested, his three bank accounts in SDFC Bank, Jammu & Kashmir Bank and SBI had money amounting to a total of Rs 86 lakh. In the investigation, we found that he paid Rs 84 lakh for terror funding activities. Meanwhile, Farooque Ahmed Batloo and Ghulam Ahmed Khan had pleaded guilty.
Sharing about how the investigation took off right after the blasts case was transferred to the Special Cell, a senior police officer said, “The blasts took place on October 29, 2005 and by November 10, Tarik Ahmad Dar-Mohammad Rafiq Shah and Mohammad Hussain Fazili were apprehended.
During the course of investigation, the suspected men had confessed that right after the blasts happened, they made two calls. In the first call, they shared in depth about how the blasts rocked busy public places where there was no CCTV cameras. This way, the suspects evaded being identified by the police. In the second call made by the two men, they entailed that in the aftermath of an earthquake in Pakistan on October 8 in 2005, to dilute their role in the serial blasts, they asked their top chief to ask the media agency in Jammu & Kashmir to publish the denial of their roles in the blasts case in the national Capital.
“In the mid of January 2006, based on the intelligence inputs received by the Intelligence Bureau that Abu-Al-Qama was behind the attacks and that Abu Ozefa, the main conspirator is hiding there, a team of Special Cell of Delhi Police along with the Indian Army, Jammu & Kashmir Police carried an extensive operation and also carried out firing in the Patan area of Srinagar. In the firing between the two sides between the main mastermind of the blasts, Abu Ozefa was eliminated in the firing which lasted for eight to 10 hours,” said the official.
However, after eliminating Abu Ozefa, we got an information that the two calls were made through a BSNl number of Jammu & Kashmir. That particular number was put on surveillance. Based on this evidence, Fazili and Rafiq Shah were arrested. In 2006, the two pleaded guilty.
In the concerned court too, a couple of independent public witness identified one of the accused as the man who hurriedly left a bag in the bus in Kalkaji area.
In their defence, the suspects claimed that one of them gave a lecture in a Kashmir University on the day of the blasts and had submitted a false document. These three men were not the key players, they were just the part of the bigger conspiracy to carry out the terror attacks, the DCP added.
In the course of the investigation, based on their disclosure, an FIR was registered against Tariq Ahmed, Farooque Ahmed Batloo and Ghulam Ahmed Khan.