By IANS,
New Delhi/Hyderabad : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Friday withdrew from its website the list of Most Wanted criminals after some blunders came to light.Embarrassed over the goof-ups, the premier investigation agency took off the list from its official site. The “Wanted persons in CBI cases” section was flashing “temporarily taken off for list updation”.
“We have taken off the list of Most Wanted men and the Red Corner notice from the official website for the purpose of review. The list will be examined in detail,” CBI spokesperson Dharini Mishra told IANS in Delhi.
Confirming that CBI Director A.P. Singh has ordered a “complete review” of the list, Mishra added: “The list will be thoroughly scrutinised in consultation with the state police forces and other agencies.”
The federal agency took the action after it was revealed that an alleged South India commander of Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul Jihad-e-Islami (HUJI) Shahed Bilal, who died long ago in Pakistan, figured in the list.
Another terror suspect, Shaik Abdul Khaja, who is lodged in a Hyderabad jail, was also named wanted.
Their names had also figured in the list of Most Wanted against whom the CBI had issued Red Corner notices.
This, close on the heels of two goof-ups in India’s list of 50 Most Wanted terrorists allegedly hiding in Pakistan and which was given by to Islamabad during the home secretary level talks in March.
It was in 2007 that Indian intelligence agencies had claimed that Mohammed Abdul Shahed alias Shahed Bilal was gunned down in Karachi along with his brother Mohammed Abdul Samad.
It was alleged that agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) killed Shahed Aug 30, 2007, three months after the Hyderabad police blamed him for the May 18 bomb blast at the historic Mecca Masjid, which had claimed nine lives.
Bilal’s father Mohammad Abdul Wahid, a resident of Moosarambagh in Hyderabad, too had confirmed that his sons were dead after he was shown a photograph by the intelligence officials.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram, during his visit here in 2009, had stated that the mosque blast case has turned cold as “we think two primary suspects in that case are dead”.
Bilal, a resident of Moosarambagh neighborhood of Hyderabad, was blamed by police for all major terror attacks in South India since 2000.
The police had suspected his involvement in the blast at city Police Commissioner’s Task Force office in Begumpet in 2005 and was named a conspirator in the aborted plan to kill then president of Bharatiya Janata Party state unit Indrasena Reddy in 2004.
Another resident of Hyderabad who figured in the CBI list is Shaik Abdul Khaja alias Mohammed Amjad. The alleged operative of HUJI, who reportedly became the outfit’s chief for South India after Bilal’s death, is currently lodged in Cherlapally Jail in Hyderabad.
Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s external intelligence organization, arrested him in Colombo last year and brought him to Hyderabad.
A commerce graduate and childhood friend of Bilal, he was allegedly trained in camps in Pakistan run by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and in Bangladesh by HUJI.
He was also named as an accused in the Task Force office blast, which was aimed to avenge the killing of Hyderabad youth Mujahid Saleem by a team of the Gujarat Police here in 2004.