Not just Mumbai, Barcelona terror case has Pune link too

Rawalpindi’s Shahid Iqbal, 27, is married to Pune’s Zehra Iqbal who also happens to be his cousin. Her family which lives on Pune’s Nagar road has been waiting, like Khan’s, for updates and brief phone calls from prison.

Zehra’s brother Mohammed Iqbal, 21, told The Indian Express over phone from Pune: “Shahid is my cousin and is married to my sister Zehra. He was arrested from Barcelona along with Jamal Khan on January 19, and has been imprisoned in Valencia without proper charges being framed against him.”

“Shahid called me at my residence on April 10 and spoke for a few minutes. He said he was in Valencia and that he hoped to be produced in court soon,” said Mohammed who also works the night shift at a call centre in Pune.

Bernhard Salellas, a local lawyer in the legal team representing the 10 men, confirmed that Shahid was one of them. “We have asked the judge concerned for a date for a court hearing in their case. However, no date has been set by the judge,” he told The Indian Express.

Spanish authorities had initially picked up 14 men from a mosque in Barcelona in connection with an alleged terror plot to carry out attacks in that city. Four of them, including another Indian, were released later. Roshan Jamal Khan’s family says he was in Spain to explore trade in olives.

Mohammed and Zehra’s father is a Pakistani national working in Kuwait for over two decades while their mother is Indian. Shahid’s father, brother of Zehra’s father, also works in Kuwait. Mohammed, Zehra and their mother moved to Pune 17 years ago. Zehra studied in Pune’s Don Bosco school and shifted to Rawalpindi after her marriage to Shahid in 2004.

Speaking to The Indian Express over phone from Rawalpindi, Zehra said: “I simply refuse to believe that he would be involved in something violent,” she said, speaking in Hindi. “He is not that sort of a person. I speak to him each day as he is allowed eight calls a week from Valencia. I do not know what to do, or whom to approach. I am trying to seek help from the Government of Pakistan and the media here.”

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