Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) on Thursday arrested an accused wanted in a 2006 “Jihadi conspiracy case” along with another man from the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, a senior official said here.
Bilal Ahmed Dar, who was on the run for 15 years following a bomb blast at Kalupur railway station in Ahmedabad in 2006, was arrested by an ATS team from Baramulla district, said Gujarat Director General of Police Ashish Bhatia.
The ATS also arrested Hussain Ali Dar, a resident of Anantnag who had allegedly sent 108 kg of ‘charas’ (cannabis) to Gujarat before 2009 and was suspected to have used the money to fund anti-India activities.
Both the accused were being brought here, the DGP added.
A blast at Kalupur railway station, the main station of Ahmedabad, in February 2006 left several persons injured though no one was killed.
“Investigation revealed that two men from Kashmir — Aslam and Bashir — incited some youngsters studying at a Bharuch-based madrasa by showing them videos of post-Godhra violence and brainwashed them into spreading terror in the country as a revenge,” Bhatia told reporters.
Bilal Dar was studying at this madrasa in 2006, he added.
Subsequently, a separate case of conspiracy and sedition under the Indian Penal Code and relevant provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was registered against all the accused who were part of the conspiracy, Bhatia said.
“Bilal joined (Pakistan-based terror group) Lashkar-e-Taiba after meeting Aslam and Bashir. He then brainwashed 15 other Muslim youths and sent them to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and Pakistan with the help of ISI to get them trained in shooting and bomb-making,” the top police official said.
Nine persons had been arrested in connection with this conspiracy earlier, he said.
Aslam is presently lodged in a jail in Jammu and Kashmir in another case, while Bashir was killed in an encounter in J&K in 2016, said the DGP.
As to the arrest of Hussain Ali Dar, an ATS release said it had arrested one Shankar Prasad with 10 kg of charas in Gujarat in 2009. Seven more persons were arrested in this case.
Some of them confessed that Hussain Ali Dar, the main supplier, had earlier sent 108 kg of charas to Gujarat. It was suspected that he was using the money from smuggling to fund anti-India activities, said the release.
