ஹேமந்த் கர்கரேவை கொல்லப்போவதாக மிரட்டிய பயங்கரவாதிகள் யார்?

ஹேமந்த் கர்கரேவை கொல்லப்போவதாக மிரட்டிய பயங்கரவாதிகள் யார்? என்ற கேள்விக்கு பதில் கிடைத்துள்ளது.

Indian Mujahideen had warned Karkare, ATS in emails
20 Dec 2008, 0112 hrs IST, Vishwa Mohan, TNN

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NEW DELHI: Pakistani terrorists who killed Hemant Karkare during their attack on the metropolis last month may not have known whom they shot on
26/11, but the senior cop and his Anti-Terrorism Squad had long been on the hit-list of their handlers - a fact which found mention in the emails sent by jehadis after the serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad.

The Indian Mujahideen (IM) - the terror outfit which carried out a number of serial blasts in different cities at the behest of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the past one year - had in its email sent on August 23 made it plain that Karkare was on their ‘hit list’.

Referring to the arrest of their cadres, the IM - a splinter group of SIMI - said: "Let us notify you, especially the top officials of the ATS like Hemant Karkare and allies that our line of attack has already been masterminded for you."

Karkare and other cops like Ashok Kamate and Vijay Salaskar were shot within three months of the dire warning.

This may not have been a boost when viewed in light of the statement of arrested terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Kasab that the jehadis had originally planned to attack Mumbai but had to abort the plot after cops in Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat - helped by IB and Karkare's ATS - managed to bust the IM modules responsible for a string of terror attacks across cities.

In that particular seven-page email - sent by IM to media houses after the arrest of its cadres by the Gujarat Police -, the outfit had even warned that the jehadis would carry out their next attack right in front of the cops' eyes.

Pointing to the Mumbai ATS, it said: "We are directly challenging you that Insha Allah we will carry out our next attacks right under your ‘close vigil’, your ‘critical surveillance’ and yes, of course, in presence of all those confidential reports that you receive from your secret sources of the IB - the ‘Ignorance Bureau’."

A more general threat had come from IM on September 13, the day it carried out the serial blasts in Delhi. Its email, sent minutes before the blasts, had even mentioned the raids Mumbai ATS had carried out in certain localities of the city after the Ahmedabad serial bombings (July 26).

It said: "Taking into account all that followed after July 26, it seems that the entire Mumbai ATS has failed to take heed from our previous warnings and is deliberately committed to mess with us."

It said that IM was aware of the ATS raids at Ansarnagar and Mograpada in Andheri.

The email said: "...let the IM warn all the people of Mumbai that whatever deadly attacks you will face in future, the only responsible elements for it will be the Mumbai ATS and their guardians: Vilasrao Deshmukh (the then chief minister) and R R Patil (the then home minister). You are already on our hit-list and this time very, very seriously."

Even the email sent on the day of Ahmedabad serial blasts on July 26, IM mentioned certain police action in some of the Muslim localities of Mumbai and warned the police of dire consequences.

Though the other two emails -- sent in November 2007 during the serial blasts in UP courts and on May 13 after the Jaipur bombing -- mentioned its warning about cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai, it did not specify any police unit, like Mumbai ATS or Gujarat ATS. The names of such cells came up in the subsequent emails when these police units started the probes in the wake of the Ahmedabad serial blasts.

Sources in intelligence agencies also pointed out that before he was attacked by BJP and the larger Sangh Parivar as well as Shiv Sena for arresting Lt Colonel Shrikant Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya and alleged Shankaracharya Dayanand Pande for the Malegaon blasts, Karkare and his team had to face an equally vicious campaign for chargesheeting eight Muslims for the 2006 attack on the Barelvi mosque in Mahrashtra's powerloom town.

The pressure from the Muslim outfits who were supported by ‘secular’ activists led the Centre to order a CBI investigation into the 2006 blast even when ATS had almost wrapped up its investigation and would soon file the chargesheet against those it had arrested.