Hydra's Head

Five days after their arrest on August 31 under pota for the bomb blasts at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazar, the gang of four have not opened up to their interrogators. According to police officials who have questioned 45-year-old Dubai-returned electrician Sayyed Mohammad Hanif, his burkha-clad 37-year-old wife Fahmeeda and 16-year-old daughter Farheen, the family has confessed to their crime. But beyond a few logistical details, nothing more on the real mastermind behind the attack has emerged. Neither has their collaborator, 25-year-old zari worker Ashrat Ansari, who took the bomb-laden taxi to Zaveri Bazaar, been very forthcoming.

The foursome claim to be part of a new terror module—the so-called Gujarat Muslim Revenge Force (GMRF)—which was apparently created to avenge the atrocities on Muslims during last year’s riots. Before the August 25 blasts, this GMRF ‘module’ had planted three other bombs in Mumbai. All four have been quick to admit their direct involvement in making and planting them.

The police are shocked by the active participation of women in this terror module. Says additional commissioner (crime) Rakesh Maria, heading the investigation: "Fahmeeda helped her husband assemble bombs in their house. She went and personally planted the bombs. She had actually taken her two daughters in the bomb-laden taxi to the Gateway of India. Besides Farheen, her four-year-old daughter Shakira was also there in the taxi with a bomb ticking in the boot."

Investigators have been collating information from these four, along with confessions of the 23 arrested for earlier blasts plus Intelligence Bureau (IB) inputs, to get a broad picture of the networks. This is what they have found:

• The Mumbai-based GMRF has strong links in Dubai and could be controlled by the Lashkar-e-Toiba.
• The blasts in the city since December ’02 seem linked to the Gujarat riots.
• The GMRF had planted three earlier bombs in the city. It had plans for unleashing more terror in Mumbai.
• A Dubai-based Indian, Nassir, may have been the mastermind behind the blasts. He was in Mumbai when the bombs were assembled. The police are also trying to trace his friend Zahid, believed to be in Dubai.
• The GMRF and other terrorist groups may have many more modules in the city.

The plans for the blasts in suburban Mumbai bus stands and railway stations were drawn up last year. Ansari and Hanif were introduced to each other at a meeting in an Andheri hotel in November 2002. Both Nassir and his friend Zahid were present. "They probably received their initial instructions at the meeting," says a senior police officer.

It was after this meeting that the team planted a series of bombs in the city. The first bomb in a bus in Andheri in December 2002 failed to explode. This was followed by an explosive placed in a Vile Parle market in January. A third bomb was placed by Fahmeeda and Ansari in a bus in Ghatkopar on July 28. It killed three people. The name of GMRF first surfaced in an e-mail recovered after the Ghatkopar blast. After the twin blasts were executed, both Hanif and Ansari made telephone calls reporting that the mission had succeeded.

"This shows that there was someone controlling the operation," says joint police commissioner (crime) Satyapal Singh. Trained in assembling explosives, it was Nassir who instructed the rest of the team, the police say. In fact, he was present in Hanif’s house in the Chimanpata chawl in suburban Andheri on the night of August 24, where the bombs for the twin blasts were assembled. When the police arrested the Hanif family, they found a stash of 235 gelatin sticks, clearly showing they had planned many more explosions in the city.

With modules such as the GMRF surfacing every few months, the police are dealing with a wider network than they had imagined. Since the series of blasts began last December, they have struck at three other modules near the city, manned by local operatives of SIMI acting on the instructions of the Pak-based Lashkar-e-Toiba. So far, LeT’s Abu Sultan (killed in an encounter in March) and Dubai-based ISI operatives Abu Hamza and Imran Rehman Khan (currently under arrest) were thought to be at the helm of the terror chain. These operatives were linked to a group of terrorist cells headed by SIMI activists. With the arrest of Saquib Nachen, the powerful SIMI coordinator based in Padgha, off Bombay, and Dr Abdul Mohammad Mateen Basith, who masterminded the December bombing, the police thought they had neutralised the terror network.

But the entry of the GMRF shows that there may be many more home-grown terrorist cells operating in isolation, driven by the same desire for revenge. The profile of the GMRF also doesn’t fit the stereotype of the "young, educated terrorist" in the SIMI modules.

The linkages in the blasts point to one common factor—the LeT. Police intelligence inputs suggest that Pak-based terrorist groups have been stepping up their activities close to Mumbai in recent years. The Gujarat riots might have pushed a flood of violence-scarred recruits in their direction. Says Maria: "Unlike the serial blasts of 1993, we are yet to see any underworld involvement in the recent spate of blasts. The modules are being propelled purely by ideology."

No one in the Chimanpatra slum in suburban Andheri where Hanif and his family lived suspected they were criminals. In fact many thought of them as a "helpful and quiet family". It is when seemingly ordinary citizens turn to crime that the police find its conventional investigation and deduction skills wanting.