By IANS,
Mumbai : Roshan Khan alias Riyaz Bhatkal, the sixth man on Mumbai Police’s list of ‘wanted’ terrorists, was entrusted with the crucial communications network and distribution of explosives for the Indian Mujahideen, police officials said Thursday.
Currently said to be in Pakistan, Khan’s right-hand man in India was Mohammed Sadiq Shaikh, who was among the five terror suspects nabbed by Mumbai Police Wednesday, they said.
Information gleaned from those nabbed has pointed at Khan, Sadiq and Atif as the founders of the shadowy Indian Mujahideen, they added.
The group was also connected with Aamir Reza, the Pakistan-based operative who was co-ordinating activities with Lashkar-E-Taiba (LeT) and HuJI, apart from the Indian Mujahideen, according to the officials.
Reza’s brother Asif belonged to the Aftab Ansari group involved in a shoot-out case outside the US consulate in Kolkata a few years ago. Asif was subsequently killed in a shoot-out with the Gujarat police some years ago, they said.
Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Rakesh Maria, interacting with mediaperosns here Thursday evening, said some of the explosives, including ammonium nitrate and gelatin, seized Wednesday, had been dispatched here from Karnataka.
Khan is also believed to have co-ordinated the terror emails and the supply of these explosives in collaboration with Sadik, he added.
Among the five terror suspects nabbed Wednesday, Sadik has been trained in Pakistan twice – in 2001 and 2005, the police said.
In 2001, Sadik had gone to Dubai from where he went to Iran and slipped into Pakistan. After acquiring training for almost nine months, he crossed over to Kathmandu, Nepal, and took the road route to re-enter India, the police officials said.
However, he adopted different routes in 2005 for his second 45-day training in Pakistan, going from West Bengal to Dhaka in Bangladesh by road, then from there to Pakistan, and returned by the same route, they added.