Abdul was flying in from Saudi Arabia, and is accused of being the prime conspirator in the terror attack in Gandhinagar that left 34 people dead and 84 injured in 2002.
At 3.45 am on Saturday, crime branch officers arrested Abdul Rashid Ajmeri, a key accused in the Akshardham temple terror attack case, from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhai Patel International terminal.
Abdul was flying in from Saudi Arabia, and is accused of being the prime conspirator in the terror attack in Gandhinagar that left 34 people dead and 84 injured in 2002. According to a crime branch officer, Abdul is supposed to have planned the attack and helped the two terrorists who stormed the temple. "The accused has links with the banned terrorist organizations such as Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba," said ACP Rajdeep Zala of Crime branch.
His brother, Adam Ajmeri, once an accused, was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2014. He now lives with his family in Ahmedabad.
According to a senior police official, they had received specific information about Abdul and three others involved in the case arriving at Ahmedabad, and had been on the lookout for six months. They had staked out at the airport four times in the past six months. This time, they believe that the three other accused found out that the team was waiting for them and canceled their plans to come to Ahmedabad at the last minute.
A senior Crime branch officer says ill-health and sentimentality brought Abdul back, who had been living in Saudi Arabia for two decades. "He has grown old and suffers from several illnesses, and wanted to spend the rest of his life with his family in Ahmedabad, even at the risk of being caught" said the officer. He had informed his brother Adam, who was supposed to receive him at the airport.
On September 24, 2002, two terrorists entered Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar with automatic weapons and hand grenades and fired indiscriminately, killing 34 people including devotees and police personals, while injuring 84 others. National Security Guard commandos ended the 14-hour seige by killing both terrorists.
Of the 34 people named in the attack, Abdul is the ninth accused to be arrested. In 2003, an FIR was lodged against Ajmeri and others at the Sector 21 police station in Gandhinagar under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy, waging war against the government, sedition, murder, attempt to murder among others. They were also booked under relevant sections of the POTA Act, the Explosive Substance Act and the Gujarat Police Act.
In May 2014, the Supreme Court acquitted all six convicts convicted earlier, including three facing death sentence. (With agency inputs)
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