He is an expert welder and such skilled persons are in high demand in the Middle East and are paid well. And because he got a passport issued, I think he must be in Dubai. Otherwise, I do not have any information about him. But I am sure he will return soon and help me clear my debts. After all, he is my brother.

That’s what Mirza Shahnawaz Baig said, sitting in his two-room flat in Aurangabad, to The Sunday Express this week.

What the police haven’t told him that as early as May 2006, they had information that his brother, alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba operative Mirza Fahad Baig, was killed in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir — Maharashtra’s first jehadi to die in the Valley.

Shahnawaz admits there has been no word from Fahad — not even a phone call — since he left Aurangabad in 2005 but says that no one has told him about his brother’s death.

The state Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) got to know of Fahad’s death during their interrogation of Aurangabad-based Mohammed Amir Shakeel Ahmed as part of the Aurangabad arms haul investigation. Amir, whose bail was rejected this week, is one of the prime accused in the Aurangabad case where the ATS had, on May 10 last year, seized 43 kg of RDX, 16 AK-47 assault rifles, 4,000 rounds of ammunition and several magazines from the outskirts of Aurangabad in a joint operation with the Intelligence Bureau.

According to Amir’s interrogation report, a copy of which has been obtained by The Sunday Express, he had recruited Fahad and six other youths for the Lashkar in April 2005 after which they were sent to PoK for terror-training.

... contd.