Yasin Bhatkal is IM bombmaker,now in Karachi: Probe team

According to information provided to the police by over half a dozen IM men arrested since September 2008 — when the last major IM attack occurred — Yasin supplied explosives,held training sessions in bomb making and even assembled bombs in a few cases. He is believed to have also supplied the ammonium nitrate used in the September 2008 Delhi blasts.

With much of the attention around the IM focused on organisers like Bhatkal,Sadiq Sheikh or Atif Amin,the real identity of ‘Shah Rukh’ had so far eluded investigators.

Hailing from the coastal Karnataka town of Bhatkal,Yasin was not in India for nearly two years prior to 2007. His family told investigators in late 2008 that he was working in Dubai and subsequently travelled to China. On the run from the police in October 2008,the Bhatkal brothers and Yasin Bhatkal are believed to have travelled through different parts of Karnataka and gone to Pune,which was frequently used as a base,and then dispersed.

Like Riyaz,Yasin is believed to be in Karachi. Mohammed Khaja,a Hyderabadi resident recently arrested by Indian agencies,has identified Yasin in pictures shown to him and said he had seen him in the Pakistani city recently,sources said.

After his arrest in late 2008 by the Mumbai Crime Branch,Ismail Chaudhry had told police that ahead of the August 2007 Hyderabad blasts,he and an associate,Anique Shaikh — also arrested by the Mumbai Crime Branch — travelled to Bangalore and met Yasin,who was also known as Ahmed. The duo were then taken to a remote farmhouse near Kopa in Chikamagalur in Karnataka,where Riyaz was present,and given training in the use of explosives and bomb materials.

Chaudhry told the police Yasin used a laptop to familiarise him and Anique with different kinds of explosives while also training them to create circuits and assemble timers. The trainees were shown videos of Iraq and other countries,Chaudhry said. After the training,Yasin asked Chaudhry and Shaikh to return to Bangalore since a new batch of trainees was expected,he said.

Ahead of the August 25 blasts in Hyderabad,Chaudhry,Anique and Riyaz camped at a hotel room in the city where Anique reportedly assembled the bombs using explosives provided by Yasin and timers bought locally from different shops by the others.

Akbar Ali,Ahmed Bava and Naushad — all alleged IM operatives who are said to have also trained at the Kopa safe house and who were arrested from different parts of Karnataka — have given similar accounts of Yasin’s role in the blasts.

Akbar Ali,who escaped with Riyaz,Yasin and Riyaz’s brother Iqbal Bhatkal ahead of a botched police raid in October 2008 on the Kopa safe house but was later caught,has told the police he once saw Yasin supervising the loading of a truck with bags of explosives.

Bava,arrested in the course of the Delhi blasts investigation,has told investigators it was Yasin who supplied explosives at Udupi in Karnataka,around August 29,2008,to Mohammed Saif,the September 13 Delhi blast accused.

Syed Noushad,arrested in October 2008 from Mangalore in the aftermath of the Delhi blasts,has told the police that Yasin was involved in the assembly of the failed integrated circuit chip timer-operated bombs attempted to be used in Surat in July 2008. These bombs were assembled in a Pune safe house with material brought from Kerala and Karnataka.

Mohammed Saif,among those arrested after the Batla House encounter of September 19,2008,has said he received the explosives in Udupi from a man called ‘Shah Rukh’.