Terror’s new face Babu Bhai sits in UP jail, joins dots from Dhaka to Hyderabad via Delhi

Forty eight hours after the twin blasts in Hyderabad, investigators are looking at questioning a 40-year-old born in a village in West Bengal, who is now sitting in a Lucknow jail. Going by his startling interrogation statement after he was arrested this June by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF), a copy of which has been obtained by The Indian Express, Jalaluddin Mullah, alias Babu Bhai, has admitted to being a key piece in a jigsaw of terror that stretches from Bangladesh to Pakistan, goes via terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, touches New Delhi, Mumbai, Varanasi, Bijnore and Unnao in UP and now even Hyderabad.

Not only has Babu Bhai confessed to making several deliveries of explosives, including RDX, across the country since 2004, he has claimed, according to his interrogation, of having delivered 20 kg of RDX to an operative in New Delhi barely weeks before the Sarojini Nagar blasts that killed 59 people.

A key member of the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HUJI), Babu Bhai's claims have so far been gathering dust but now are the subject of renewed investigation. Top Andhra police officials have confirmed to The Indian Express that a police team is expected to land in Lucknow this week to take Babu Bhai into custody.

If the police want him to help them join the dots, they could start with his 17-page statement itself. For, the fact is that both Babu Bhai and Shahid Bilal, the prime accused in Hyderabad's twin blasts, were working for Munir-ul-Islam alias Assadullah, a HUJI commander in Dhaka and who runs a madrasa there. Significantly, Assadullah's name also figures in the interrogation of Waliullah, a Phoolpur cleric with HUJI linkages, one of the main accused in the March 2006 Sankatmochan blasts in Varanasi.

Says Ajit Doval, former Director, Intelligence Bureau: "The assault from the east and entrenchment in the hinterland are two disturbing trends on the terrorist front. What is lesser known and more serious is HUJI's intimate and old Al-Qaeda linkages. Now that Al Qaeda the world over is in the business of outsourcing terror through franchise, this organisation should figure high on the security radar."

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