A medical doctor, Jalees Ansari, who was the mastermind behind a series of bomb blasts in five trains on the intervening night of December 5-6, 1993, coinciding with the first anniversary of the Babri Majid demolition, has been sentenced to life by the Supreme Court along with nine others. The blasts resulted in two deaths and 22 persons were injured.
The 59-year old Jalees who is lodged at Central Jail, Ajmer for the past 22 years is wanted in over 60 cases of light intensity bomb blasts and is even being probed for planting bombs in Malegaon. He widely became known in terror circles as “Dr Bomb” as after abandoning his medical practice he trained youngsters to make bombs and even coordinated blasts across various trains and railway stations to avenge for the Babri Masjid demolition.
The TADA court in Ajmer had sentenced Ansari and 13 others on February 28, 2004, establishing their role in the train blasts. Dismissing the appeals filed by 10 of the accused, the Apex Bench of Justices FM Ibrahim Kalifulla and UU lalit upheld their conviction and acquitted four others on the ground that proper sanction from the police authorities was lacking under the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act.
Dealing with the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Bench was convinced that Ansari was the “mastermind” and “main architect” of the conspiracy hatched by him to plant bombs across five trains on the night of December 5-6, 1993 to send a chilling reminder to the nation on the anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition.
The blasts occurred in three Rajdhani trains and two express trains which included Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani, New Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani, Mumbai Rajdhani, Flying Queen and AP Express. The accused even planted a bomb in another train which did not explode. The two casualties were reported from the AP Express blast as the bomb went off in the general compartment of the train. Cases were registered at Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and lucknow but all cases were together heard and decided by the Ajmer court.
The prosecution case led by advocate PK Dey for CBI in Supreme Court informed the Court that Ansari was in touch with several trainers and had even received training in Pakistan for bomb making. He was a practicing doctor at Gulbarga, Karnataka but got influenced to take up militancy following the Babri Masjid incident. He roped in a homoeopathic doctor and a former lecturer in executing his plans. They too were found to be equally guilty in the crime by the Supreme Court, which punished them with life term.
According to the statement of co-accused, Ansari was called “Doctor” and he taught the accused how to prepare tiffin box bombs using TNT and gelatin sticks connected with watch timer devices to carry out low intensity blasts. Before his arrest in January 1994, some of the accomplices he trained went on to become key operators supplying logistics and ammunition to Indian Mujahideen (IM), the group which was instrumental behind carrying out a series of blasts in Delhi and north Indian States. One such accomplice was Irfan Ahmed, who was arrested along with Ansari but jumped parole. He was later arrested in June 2015 by the Delhi Police Special Cell and was found to be the IM head in Nepal.