Police escort one of the arrested men out of court in Ahmedabad on Sunday. (PTI)

Ahmedabad/Mumbai, Aug. 17: The Ahmedabad blast probe today focused on the computer wizard said to be a key conspirator, with Mumbai police confident of catching him within a week.

The 38-year-old, originally a Mumbai resident, is known by his alias of Taufiq Bilal in Students’ Islamic Movement of India (Simi) circles, Maharashtra police’s anti-terrorist squad (ATS) sources said.

Gujarat police said the techie, who used to work for Wipro before joining Simi full time, also used a second name: Abdul Subahan.

“We are closing in on him. He is now in Karnataka… but he will be in our net by the end of this week,” said Hemant Karkare, chief of the ATS, which claims it has Taufiq’s photograph.

Gujarat police sources said Taufiq, a “cyber and explosives expert”, had links with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul Jihadi Islami, and could try to escape to Bangladesh.

Yesterday, police had said Taufiq plotted the blasts with Mufti Abu Basheer, a 22-year-old madarsa teacher said to be the chief of Indian Mujahideen, in a flat in Ahmedabad’s Vatva area.

Taufiq is suspected to have hacked the computer of US national Ken Heywood, a Navi Mumbai resident, to send email warnings minutes before the Ahmedabad blasts.

Sources said he also helped organise meetings in Panvel and Navi Mumbai to plan the Ahmedabad attack and the May bombings in Jaipur.

An ATS source said Taufiq was one of several techies picked up after the July 11, 2006, Mumbai train blasts, but was let off because of lack of evidence. “He went underground right after that.”

Taufiq was employed with a Wipro direct selling agent between 1996 and 1998, the source said.

“Although not a qualified engineer, Taufiq’s IT expertise is believed to be better than that of many BTechs and MTechs. He was drawing Rs 60,000 from the Wipro agent when he quit,” the source said. “In his resignation letter in 1998, he said he wanted to take a break to spend time working for religion.”

Taufiq’s family of eight includes two brothers and two sisters besides their parents. They live in Mira Road in downtown Nayanagar, a Mumbai suburb.

“They claim they have not been in touch with him for the past two years. They say he left sometime after the July 11 blasts,” Karkare said.

14-day remand

The nine alleged Gujarat-based Simi activists arrested for the blasts were today remanded in police custody for 14 days. The Ahmedabad courtroom swarmed with police and relatives of the accused, all aged 20-25.

Defence lawyer Hashim Qureshi alleged the police were trying to frame his clients. “According to the police, all my clients were arrested yesterday, but they have been in custody since July 31 and August 8. So the court should not give further remand,” he said.

Qureshi added that the police’s act of briefing the media amounted to an attempt to influence the judiciary. He sought contempt proceedings against the crime branch.

The 10th suspect, Basheer, has been brought from Uttar Pradesh on a three-day transit remand granted by a Lucknow court yesterday.