Mumbai: The Mumbai Anti-terrorism squad has submitted a chargesheet in the MCOCA court in the 13/7 blasts case. The 4788 page chargesheet includes testimonies of 641 witnesses. 19 of these witnesses identified the accused in an identification parade. The ATS has also submitted an unprecedented 308 hours of CCTV footage as evidence against the bomb planters.
The CCTV footage was gathered from 170 cameras after a door to door survey by the ATS in a 3-4 kilometer radius of all 3 blast sites. 32 policemen analysed this footage for 29 days after which the planters were identified. All of the footage has now been submitted along with the chargesheet as evidence.
4 people – Naqi Ahmed, Nadeem Akhtar, Haroon Sheikh and hawala operative Kanwal Pathrija - have already been arrested in the blasts that killed 27 and injured 127 on 13th July 2011. 6 others including the Bhatkal brothers have been shown as wanted in the case. ATS chief Rakesh Maria claims the motive of the blasts conducted by the Indian Mujahideen was to weaken the economic structure of the city. All the 3 locations, Zaveri Bazar, Opera House and Kabutarkhana in Dadar are prominent commercial areas.
The ATS has also arrested a 5th accused, Mohammed Qafil Ansari from Darbhanga for providing logistical support to the planters. Ansari will be chargesheeted in a supplementary chargesheet later on. The ATS has also traced the money trail to a Dubai based firm called Muzaffar Kolah Enterprises. The proprietor of the firm Muzaffar Kolah is said to have made the telephone call instructing hawala operative Kanwal Pathrija to hand over 10 lakh rupees that were used for the execution of the blasts. Muzaffar Kolah is also one of the wanted accused in the chargesheet. The alleged planters Waqas and Tabrez are also amongst those wanted.
The Bhatkal brothers, Yasin and Riyaz are believed to be the masterminds of the blast. The chargesheet mentions that Riyaz, who is currently in Pakistan, passed on instructions to Yasin Bhatkal. Yasin’s name also figures in the German bakery and Ahmedabad Shahi Baug serial blast cases.
The ATS has filed charges under the IPC, MCOCA, UAPA, Prevention of damage to public property as well as the Passport act.
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