JOIN USInterrogation of the alleged expert bomb maker of Indian Mujahideen Zia Ur Rehman alias Waqas has revealed several aspects about his training in Pakistan and the terror attacks carried out by IM in India.
However, police have so far failed to extract information on the places or personalities the organisation have been planning to target in the near future.
On Sunday, S N Shrivastava, Special Commissioner of Police of Special Cell, had said that preliminary investigations and the recovery of huge quantity of explosives indicated that the IM was planning to target important events in India.
He said on Monday that “no clear targets, places or personalities” have been revealed so far. “The arrested persons had been assisting Tehseen Akhtar alias Monu (an IM leader). They were kept in the dark about the targets,” he said.
But the interrogation has revealed startling facets about Waqas’ personality. He has been found to be determined to train for Jihad, willingly opting for consecutive training sessions in 2009.
He had shown “sincerity” since the first time he sought training. “In 2009 he expressed his interest in training to Taj Mohammad who used to collect donations on behalf of Jamat-Ud-Dawa. To check his sincerity, Taj asked him to return after two to three days.
Waqas returned, but was again told to come after a few days. He was finally inducted for 21-day training at Naushera camp of LeT,” said Shrivastava.
The training session in religious practices and handling of weapons among other things would begin at 5.30 am and go on till 5 pm with only two hours break in between. But Waqas was “unsatisfied” and opted to train at yet another camp in Waziristan in Pakistan.
There were about 20 to 25 youths, aged between 15 and 25 years, in each of these camps, but few could cope with the entire session. Waqas was one of the few who survived. It was at the Waziristan camp that he learnt to make bombs.
“The organisation opted for items like hydrogen peroxide and potassium chloride to manufacture explosives as these items are easily available in the local market there,” Srivastava said.
It was after these training sessions that he was dispatched to Kathmandu in Nepal from where he entered India to carry out a series of blasts and shootouts with his accomplices in India between 2010 and 2013.
Waqas and three other IM suspects were arrested from different places in Rajasthan on Saturday and Sunday in connection with several blasts in India.