The next day, Bashiruddin went on a recce mission with Waliullah from Allahabad to Varanasi while the other two prepared the IEDs. They identified the targets — Gowdhulia ghat, the railway station and the Sankatmochan temple — and returned to Allahabad the same day after picking up three pressure cookers. Waliullah says he left his mobile phone in Phoolpur so that his location could not be traced.

On the fateful day, Waliullah claims, the bombers left with IEDs in the bags and with instructions not to be in touch with each other. That was the last Waliullah saw of them and in the evening, the bombs exploded. The bombers escaped back to Bangladesh.

Charges were framed against Waliullah in a Ghaziabad court last month. “The addresses are being verified,” is the one line written in the official record of the Varanasi blast case regarding police efforts to nab the bombers.

This January, a team headed by an inspector was constituted by the Varanasi Range DIG to ascertain the identity of the three accused persons. “We are trying to collect details of their addresses. We have communicated to the police of other states to help us ascertain the identity of the three accused persons,” Varanasi SSP S B Shiradkar told The Indian Express.

Police have named six as accused. Besides Mustafeez, Jakaria and Bashiruddin, the names of Waliullah, Shamim and Zubair figured in the FIR as the accused persons of the case. While Zubair, a resident of UP’s Baghpat district, was killed in an encounter with police in Jammu and Kashmir, Shamim has been declared as a proclaimed absconder. Shamim is a resident of Lawanda village under the Alinagar police station of Chandauli district. The police have also announced a reward of Rs 10,000 for his arrest. The police attached his properties on November 24, 2006.

... contd.