Gunina Housing Society. (Fotocorp)

Mumbai, July 27: Maharashtra’s anti-terrorist squad today traced the email allegedly sent by the Indian Mujahideen, a little-known terror group that claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad serial blasts yesterday, to an American family living in a Navi Mumbai highrise.

The 14-page email was sent from the address alarbi_Gujarat@yahoo.com. The Internet protocol address was traced to Kenneth Heywood of Gunina Housing Society, Sector 2, Sanpada. Heywood is a resident of flats 1503/1504, C Wing.

A TV channel had claimed yesterday that it received the threat mail five minutes before the first of the 16 blasts in Ahmedabad. STAR News said it had received a mail at 9pm. It is not clear if the two mails are identical or, if not, which one had police traced to Navi Mumbai.

Built last year, Gunina is a multi-storeyed housing complex on Palm Beach Road, an upscale neighbourhood in Navi Mumbai.

ATS teams that reached the top floor of C Wing just after midnight found the two flats in the name of Delhi-based couple Abhishek and Mamta Sharma had been rented out to an American family. The family claimed innocence and said their account had been hacked, sources said.

ATS chief Hemant Karkare refused to give details of the investigations. “We have conducted multiple searches. The investigations are still on,” he said.

Karkare said his squad had asked Mumbai police to step up security at malls and places of worship. Security has been tightened at the Bombay Stock Exchange because of a warning in the email. It threatened more attacks in Mumbai and specifically mentioned the stock exchange, which was targeted during the March 1993 serial explosions and has been on the terror hit list ever since.

Mumbai police commissioner Hassan Gafoor suggested the email might be fake when he said: “Some inconsistencies and discrepancies have cropped up in the email probe. It is too early to comment. We have sent it for forensic analysis. There was a generalised threat perception to the BSE, and we have stepped up security as a precautionary measure.”

The email also threatened industrialist Mukesh Ambani, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and home minister R.R. Patil.

“Don’t think we are unaware of the SRPF attacks on our masjids and our homes, the insult of our Quran, and your enmity (sic) with the Muslims in Digras and nearby areas in Yavatmal, and of the burning alive of three Muslims in Jalna with the backing of the police….We wonder at your memory. Have you forgotten the evening of July 11 2006 so quickly and so easily?” it asked the politicians.

The Reliance Industries chairman was singled out because he is building his new 27-storey home on a plot that was originally wakf land. “We also alert Mukesh Ambani to think twice before usurping and building a citadel on a land in Mumbai that belongs to the Wakf Board, lest it turns into horrifying memories for you which you will never ever forget,” the email warned.

The email also referred to the 1992-93 communal riots. “You try to fool us in the name of fast-track courts made for ’93 riot case, through which you wish to free the actual Hindu culprits like Madhukar Sarpotdar, who was caught redhanded with illegal firearms, while innocent Muslims arrested in the bomb blasts case are being tried in the courts for years and years,” it said.