Yasin Bhatkal: Sending 1000 dollars to his wife lead to his arrest

Yasin Bhatkal: Sending 1000 dollars to his wife lead to his arrest

www.mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, Aug 30, 2013 (NDTV): The critical mistake of sending 1000 dollars home before Eid proved to be the undoing of alleged terror mastermind Yasin Bhatkal, who was arrested on Wednesday night in north Bihar, near the border with Nepal.

 

For six months, intelligence agencies had kept a close watch on the Indian Mujahideen (IM) co-founder’s wife and his alleged associates in Delhi, through an informer close to the family. They had also tapped phone calls to the family.

Yasin, 30, reportedly told his interrogators that his phone calls to his wife gave him away.

Sources say Yasin called his wife twice just before Eid on August 9. After the calls, he sent a tranche of money to her through the hawala route, which was traced to Pokhara in Nepal.

But the agencies reportedly had the first clear lead on his whereabouts five months ago, when their informer revealed that Yasin had sent some money and clothes to his wife.

Almost simultaneously, Intelligence Bureau (IB)’s source in Bihar revealed that Yasin and his IM associates had been spotted in a remote village in the west of Nepal, in March.

Informers even recced the house in Nepal where Yasin had been staying since 2011. Locals there believed that he was a Unani doctor - one who specialises in Islamic traditional remedies - a cover he had allegedly used during terror activities in India.

Fellow Indian Mujahideen member Asadullah or Haddi, who was also arrested with Yasin, had joined him in February.

But even after identifying Yasin, intelligence agencies waited until their big moment arrived on Wednesday.

"The moment Yasin and Asaddullah moved to cross over into India from the Raxual border on Wednesday, a team of the Intelligence Bureau, National Investigation Agency and the Bihar police caught them," said a source.

 

House of Yasin’s wife in Delhi focus of attention
New Delhi: A small house in a narrow lane in Shaheen Bagh area here, the home of the wife of Yasin Bhatkal, has become the focus of attention following his arrest from the Indo-Nepal border.

The last time this happened was when Zahida’s father and Bhatkal’s father-in-law Mohammad Irshad Khan was arrested in 2011 by Delhi police in connection with the German Bakery blast and the M Chinnaswamy Stadium bombings.

The family refused to talk to any mediapersons who made a beeline outside the house today. Neighbours said that the family always maintains a low profile and hardly interacts with anybody.

According to locals, Bhatkal married Zahida around 2008. Like always, he even hid his identity from his in-laws.  “He had told them that his name is Imran and he hails from Lucknow. We have not seen him much. Months after the marriage, he had left Zahida with her parents promising to return after some time but he never did that,” said a local.