28 July,2009 08:00 AM IST | | Vinod Kumar Menon
Top cop Rakesh Maria reveals how they cracked the case Guilty: Cops grilled Ashrat Ansari in a buffalo shed in Aarey Milk Colony, Goregaon. That is where he broke down and confessed all
Cops disguised as vendors, chasing suspects through the city's narrow by-lanes to nab them. The story of how the Mumbai police cracked the 2003 twin blasts case sounds like a script straight out of a Bollywood potboiler.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria, who was then additional commissioner (crime), recalled the leads they got and said the most thrilling part of the chase was nabbing Ashrat Ansari and grilling him in a tabela in Aarey Milk Colony, where he broke down and confessed to the crime.
Ansari (32), along with Sayyed Mohammed Hanif (46) and his wife Fahmeeda (43), were found guilty by the special POTA court yesterday for their involvement in the 2003 twin blasts.
The tip-off
It was cabbie Shivnarayan Pandey, whose vehicle was used in the blast at Gateway, who gave the first tip-off.
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"The blasts were plotted in Dubai and executed by the Gujarat Muslim Revenge Force to avenge the 2002 Gujarat riots," said Maria.
Soon after the blast at Gateway, Pandey rushed to the Colaba police station to provide information about his passengers (Hanif, Fahmeeda, their daughter Farheen then 16-years-old and Ashrat), who he suspected had planted the bomb.
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"At 4 pm, he was taken to the Crime Branch office at Crawford Market, where the sketches of the accused were made.
By 10 pm, the sketches were circulated to all Crime Branch unit heads, instructing them to put their informers on alert," said Maria.
The second break came on August 28, when Inspector V Savade approached him. One of Savade's informers had spotted Farheen and Ashrat meeting often in Chimatpada, Andheri (east).
Cops in disguise
Following this, the police kept a close eye on Ashrat. Many of them went undercover as vegetable and fruit vendors and were posted next to his residence in Juhu Gully.
On August 30, they followed Ashrat and detained him near the Marol pipeline. They put him in a Maruti van and took him to a buffalo shed, where he was interrogated for an hour.
Cornered, Ashrat spilled the beans, including the names of Hanif and Fahmeeda. "Subsequently, the couple were arrested. We had enough evidence to establish their role in the blasts," said Maria.u00a0
