Admitting that, A K Jain, Inspector General of UP’s Anti-Terror Squad, said: “The Delhi Police gave us no information before their operation. They are sharing the information now after the killing of two Azamgarh youths.” After the Jamia Nagar operation, in which Atif and Sajid were killed, Delhi Police Joint Commissioner Karnail Singh said they had got vital information from Gujarat and Rajasthan Police. As for the UP police, Singh said: “We started sharing details with UP police only after the encounter and the arrest.”

Ahmedabad Crime Branch Joint Commissioner Ashish Bhatia said they got to know two mobile numbers from Abu Bashar’s interrogation and the calls were made between Azamgarh and Delhi. “We gave this information to Intelligence Bureau and it was passed on to Delhi Police which helped in tracing Atif and others. I am not aware if the IB had shared those call details with UP police.”

Sources involved in anti-terrorist operations in various states say they are reluctant to share information with the UP police because of “too much political meddling” in its anti-terrorist operations. They say there had been instances when the UP police failed to act on their information, or even keep watch on certain elements.

For example, way back in March, the UP Police knew about the information given out by former SIMI chief Safadar Nagori, general secretary Shibli and 10 others during their interrogation after their arrest in Madhya Pradesh, said the sources.

The information included the names and address of Lucknow resident Shahbaz Hussain and the fact that he had attended several important SIMI meetings in Mumbai, Kolkata, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Kerela and UP between 2004 and February 2008.

DGP of Madhya Pradesh SK Raut said: “An IG rank officer accompanied by a team from UP Police was there with us during interrogation. They all had referred the name of Shahbaz and other UP-based activists.”

But the UP Police did not act on the information, nor kept a close watch on him. Later, Rajasthan Police arrested Shahbaz from Lucknow for his involvement in blasts which took place in Jaipur on May 13.

Jain denied that a team had gone to MP. He said: “We were keeping a watch on Shahbaz for over eight months. The moment the Jaipur police mentioned his name, we helped them in arresting Shahbaz.” He added that they had no reason to lay their hands on Shahbaz — this despite the fact that belonged to a banned organisation.

Shahbaz was no ordinary SIMI activist. Nagori revealed that he had been elected president of a split faction of SIMI in a meeting held at Hubli in Karnataka on April 25, 2007, and had been organising all important activities of SIMI from Lucknow. Shibli, a native of Kottayam, had visited Shahbaz’s Maulviganj residence in Lucknow six times between 2006 and 2008; his last visit was on February 18.