“Get ready. You have to leave for Darbhanga at the earliest. The Karnataka Police have apprehended an Indian Mujahideen (IM) suspect from a village there in the Chinnaswamy Stadium blast case,” said my News Editor in an early morning phone call in 2012.
In the next five hours, I was at Barh Samaila, a nondescript village in Darbhanga, 200 kms away from Patna where the suspect was apprehended. There was a pall of gloom in the village as the Muslim-dominated villagers were in a state of shock after the Karnataka Police picked up the suspect, Kafil Akhtar. While roaming around the village, I found that a majority of them had not cooked their food in solidarity with the family. As I was taking a stroll, one of the youths asked me: “Who are you?”
I said: “I am a senior journalist from a Bangalore-based newspaper.” The moment I said “Bangalore”, around 25 young men came from nowhere and surrounded me. I was completely unaware that a day before, the cops, who apprehended Kafil, had posed themselves as private telecom company employees looking to set up towers in rural areas, before flying back to Bengaluru with Kafil.
The crowd swelled and was about to turn unruly as they mistook me to be a plainclothesman cop from Bangalore. Before they could charge towards me, a voice came from another side: “Abhayji, what are you doing here?”
It was Shakeel Ahmad, the then Union Minister of State for Home in the UPA regime, who was there to express his solidarity with the aggrieved family at Barh Samaila.
Being identified by my name, that too by a Union minister, saved the day for me. While villagers complained that Kafil had never been to Bengaluru, his namesake Kafeel, also from Barh Samaila, and a distant relative of Kafil, stayed in Karnataka and was a cycle mechanic.
However, while the Karnataka Police had done their homework meticulously, they kept the Bihar Police out of the loop, notwithstanding the strong protest later lodged by the Bihar CM and the DGP.
The Karnataka cops had got Kafil’s number from Kafeel, who was earlier arrested. Besides, there were three more occasions where the cops could have erred but carried out the entire operation with clinical precision.
First, just near Barh Samaila, there is a village called Samaila. also in Darbhanga. But the cops were not confused. They swooped down to Barh Samaila, not Samaila.
Secondly, there is a place called Hajipur Chowk before reaching this village in Darbhanga. There is also a Hajipur Chowk near Vaishali (while coming to Darbhanga). The Karnataka cops knew which Hajipur Chowk they had to visit.
And third, there is a place called Barh, located 80 kms east of Patna. While Barh Samaila is 200 kms north of Patna. Though no help was sought from the local police, the Karnataka cops knew they had to visit Barh Samaila, not Barh.