The 21 men accused of being members of Indian Mujahideen and blamed for a series of bomb blasts across the country over the last three years claim to have stolen identities from matrimonial websites,telephone directories and shaved their long beards so that they could not be identified as Muslims easily,according to confessions submitted to court today. They also claim that they were not aware they were part of a group named Indian Mujahideen until its alleged founder,Riyaz Bhatkal,informed them as they celebrated their success in triggering serial blasts in Jaipur last year even though Bhatkal is said to have coined the name sometime in 2005. Moreover,it was his brother Iqbal Bhatkals idea to plant bombs in trees and hoardings in Surat last year in an attempt to try something new and spectacular,they say. These and other details are part of the confessions of seven of the 21 men that were opened by a Special MCOCA court in Mumbai today,a copy of which was obtained by The Indian Express. The confessions were recorded before a magistrate last year but the accused have since sought to withdraw them in court,which is not permissible under MCOCA. The men are blamed for the serial bomb blasts in courts in Uttar Pradesh,Jaipur,Ahmedabad,Delhi,as well as the series of bombs that failed to explode in Surat last year. They were chargesheeted by the Mumbai Police in February for hacking into wireless internet accounts and sending terror e-mails. One of the accused,27-year-old Anik Shafiq Sayyed,says in his confession that the group used information posted by prospective bridegrooms on matrimonial sites such as Shaadi.com and Bharati.com to get themselves student ID cards which were then used for getting driving licences. They also used address information of people listed in BSNL telephone directories to procure mobile SIM cards. While there is no matrimonial site called Bharati.com,it was not clear if the accused was referring to another matrimonial site with a similar name. Sayyed,a professional desktop publishing (DTP) operator who was arrested from Pune railway station last year,claims that the Bhatkal brothers assigned him the task of making the ID cards because of his DTP skills. The brothers also instructed him after the serial blasts in Ahmedabad last July to destroy the SIM cards and mobile phone handsets by smashing them with stones. According to the confession of another accused,Mohammed Akbar Ismail Chowdhry,the Bhatkals never told the group that they were part of an outfit called Indian Mujahideen. When we came back to our rented apartment in Jaipur after the blasts there,Riyaz Bhatkal thanked us all and informed us that we were part of a sophisticated group called Indian Mujahideen, says Chowdhry,who is alleged to have planted the bombs in Jaipur. The group celebrating the success was apparently elated over this revelation,he claims. Chowdhry and Sayyed both claim that the Bhatkals also ordered the group to shave their long beards just like the brothers had after they were indoctrinated with jihadi ideology so that they would not be easily identified as Muslims. Chowdhry,who is also alleged to have been a part of the Gujarat blasts conspiracy,claims it was Iqbals idea to plant bombs on trees in Surat. Gujarat mein musalmano pe honewaley zulmon ka badla ek innovative tarike se hona chahiye,yeh baat Riyazbhai ne humse kaha, he says in the confession. Jis par Iqbal bhai ne hamey bataya ki Surat mein blast pedon par,caron mein aur board par karne se maximum problem ho sakti hai. (Riyazbhai told me that the atrocities heaped on Muslims in Gujarat should be avenged innovatively. After which Iqbal bhai told me that we can cause maximum damage in Surat if we placed bombs on trees,in cars and on hoardings.) The Bhatkals had also planned to kidnap children of two Pune builders,Lunkad and Raka,for ransom to fund their activities,the confessions claim. They allegedly planned to inject the children with injections of the narcotic,Ketamine. The injections were allegedly procured by Dr Anwar Bagwan,an MBBS doctor who is also one of the arrested accused,and tried on Sayyed and Chowdhry to see how they worked. But the kidnapping could not be executed as the children were never seen alone.
