Samad’s arrest helps ATS to nab prime suspect of German bakery blast

Samad’s arrest helps ATS to nab prime suspect of German bakery blast

Mangalore Today

September 9: A team of ATS officers worked on shifts round-the-clock watching every movement of the German Bakery blast suspects Bilal and Himayat Baig before nabbing the terror duo, repots Mid-Day Mumbai.

 

 

The hunt for Bilal Shaikh began with the arrest of Abdul Samad in May this year. Samad was whisked away by ATS officials from the plane minutes after the aircraft landed at Mangalore airport on May 24. The ploy worked and resulted in the arrest of prime suspect Bilal Shaikh, from Nashik and his aide Mirza Himayat Baig from Pune yesterday.

Samad’s arrest was a well calculated move to infiltrate into the Indian Mujahideen module. The Anti-Terrorism Squad used him as a bait to close in on other members of the outfit.

Two days after Samad’s arrest, his parents were allowed to meet him. The Shahbandari family were given full freedom to talk to other relatives and friends in their village Bhatkal.

What father Abdul Yakib Shahbandari, mother Rehana and uncle Mohammed Ali were not aware was ATS sleuths were snooping around them. Their conversations and telephone calls led officials to prime suspect Bilal Sheikh, who was holed up in Bangalore.

Samad’s family was piqued that Riyaz Shahbandari alias Riyaz Bhatkal and his brother Iqbal had brought disrepute to the village. There is reason to believe that some residents of Bhatkal village had helped Mumbai’s ATS to close in on the terror suspects.

Just students
Telephone records indicated that members of Bilal’s module, posing as post graduate students, were staying at service apartments in Frazer and nearby Benson Town.

It helped them move around freely in the township with few neighbours suspecting their activities, informed a police source.

A team of officers, accompanied by informants, flew into Bangalore by the next flight.

Code language
Initially, the officers could not make sense of the conversations as they were in Naiwali, a dialect spoken in Bhatkal Village in South Karnataka. The services of a local translator were hired to analyse the intercepted data. Once the cops understood the language keeping tabs became easier.

24-hr tabs
The buildings were kept under surveillance and officers worked on shifts round-the-clock to watch their every movement. The operation was monitored by ATS chief Rakesh Maria. Officers from Mumbai flew into Bangalore at regular intervals to relieve their tired colleagues.

Giving the slip
While the ATS kept constant tabs on the IM members, Bilal managed to give them the slip. After his arrest, Bilal told investigators that he would change his appearance and shuttle between Bangalore, Mangalore, Bhatkal Village, Gulbarga, Nasik and Pune.

Secret operation
The team led by Maria exercised extreme caution and utmost patience as they did not want to let Bilal escape just like how IM masterminds Riyaz Bhatkal and his brother Iqbal gave the cops the slip.

The operation was so discreet that even local police were unaware of the ATS team’s presence in Bangalore.

Big fish hunting
The ATS team and informers entered the service apartments in Frazer Town posing as cable operators. At times they even entered the room as ISP technicians. However, each time the cops entered the apartment, Bilal was missing. There were more than 24 abortive attempts before the suspect was finally arrested.

At times the officers were within breathing distance from the suspects. However, they were restrained by their seniors as it could hamper the entire operation.

Bikes only
The suspects used motorcycles as this gave them the freedom to traverse around the city. Members of the module were shadowed by the sleuths, also on motorbikes, on the streets of Bangalore without raising suspicion.

’Grab him’
The final go to arrest Bilal was given after almost 70 days when they were absolutely sure that they could arrest another key member Himayat Baig simultaneously.

"It is more of human intelligence," Maria told MiD DAY.
Courtesy- Mid-Day