Bomb material recovered in Bhatkal same as in three blasts: Probe

The explosives and circuitry match with a small quantity of explosives and bomb equipment found abandoned in an apartment in Mangalore that was used as a hideout and bomb-making laboratory by two IM operatives, Asadullah Akhtar alias Haddi and Zia-ur-Rehman alias Waqas, in 2012-13 while they were preparing for the February 21, 2013 Hyderabad blasts.

Sources said the 40 packets of ammonium nitrate gel had the same brand name as a gel packet found in a flat in the Zephyr Heights building in Mangalore in September 2013 when an NIA team was taken there by Asadullah Akhtar — he was arrested along with key IM operative Yasin Bhatkal on August 29, 2013.

According to the NIA’s chargesheet in the Hyderabad Dilsukhnagar case a bag “containing 300 tubes of semi-solid pinkish coloured ANFO (ammonium nitrate gel) of 100 gram each and 50 numbers of detonators” were delivered to Akhtar and Waqas near their Mangalore flat by an unidentified person while they were preparing for the blast.

An NIA raid on the Mangalore flat in 2013 also led to the finding of 50 digital watches, several with wires connected to transform them into bomb timers, a few cellphones with wiring to enable their use as timers in bombs. and three electrical detonators, apart from a packet of ammonium nitrate gel.

Police and investigating agencies have now zeroed in on Syed Ismail Afaque, 34, a homoeopathy doctor from Bhatkal, as the supplier of the ammonium nitrate and detonators meant for the Dilsukhnagar blasts. Afaque and three others — Saddam Hussein (35) Abdus Subur (24) and Riyaz Ahmed Sayeedi (32) — were arrested earlier this month.

Police now believe that the explosives used in the Mumbai serial blasts of July 13, 2011 by the Indian Mujahideen also originated from the same source as the Dilsukhnagar blast. This deduction has been made on the basis of a chat conversation between Pakistan-based IM operative Riyaz Bhatkal and his then Nepal-based associate Yasin Bhatkal.

The NIA chargesheet in the Dilsukhnagar case details some of the chats between IM operatives in the run-up to the Hyderabad blast: “Riyaz (A-1) further mentioned that the explosives were to be collected from the supplier of Mumbai blasts of July 13, 2011, and that there was a different supplier for the Pune August 1, 2012 blast’’.

The chats between IM operatives dwells at length on the subject of explosives. In one of the chats, Riyaz Bhatkal tells Yasin that he was making efforts to obtain basic gelatin since it was effective while Yasin suggests usage of picric acid if gelatin is not available, and since gelatin gets spoilt over time. Riyaz also talks about poor quality gelatin being the reason for the failure of the August 1, 2012 blasts in Pune.

A third set of IM-related blasts to which investigators have found a link on the basis of the material seized at Bhatkal is the Bangalore Chinnaswamy Stadium blast of April 17, 2010. Sources said that integrated circuit timers, similar to those used in some of the failed bombs, had been found in the seizures this month.

“This was a module that was used by the IM as well as other terrorist organisations to procure, fabricate, supply and deliver deadly explosives,” Bangalore police commissioner M N Reddi said. The arrested IM operatives received money through hawala channels and one of them attended meetings in a foreign country where the conspiracy to supply explosives was hatched, he said.

”We are collecting information about the explosives from the arrested persons. For the first time, we have information about the source of explosives for various blasts in the country,” Reddi claimed.

Police have indicated that the arrested persons could also have been the source of explosives for the Pune German Bakery blast of February 13, 2010. “The interrogation of the accused is throwing light on the sourcing of explosives in bomb blast cases after 2010,’’ Reddi said.