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Sadaquat

January 22, 2002: At 6.36am, two men on a motorcycle fire from AK-47s at cops guarding American Center, killing six. Mohammed Idris, alias, Zayed, drives the motorcycle and Sadaquat fires the shots January 23: Idris and Sadaquat leave for Hazaribagh on train January 28: Idris and aide Salim killed in a police raid in Hazaribagh. Sadaquat flees February 2002: Mastermind Aftab Ansari deported from Dubai April 2005: Ansari and six others awarded death sentence. Sadaquat, Hassan Imam and Amir Reza Khan declared absconders

The man who allegedly fired at policemen in front of the American Center in January 2002, killing six, has been caught.

Sadaquat, who was arrested by Mumbai police one and a half months ago in connection with the serial blasts on local trains, has turned out to be the one who had fired in front of the American Center.

Sadaquat has admitted to firing 69 rounds at the policemen guarding the Center, the police say. Six of the cops died, while 21 others and three pedestrians were injured.

“He confessed that he had emptied the magazine of his AK-47 on the policemen,” Rajeev Kumar, the special inspector-general of the special task force of Calcutta police, said on Monday.

Sadaquat’s link with the firing came to light during an interrogation by a Calcutta police team, led by Kumar, in Mumbai on Saturday.

The youth in his mid-30s, originally from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, will be brought to the city later since he will first be interrogated by law enforcing agencies of Mumbai, Gujarat and Delhi.

Apart from the Mumbai train blasts in July 2006, Sadaquat is the prime suspect in the recent serial explosions in Delhi and Ahmedabad.

Sadaquat is the eighth accused in the American Center case to be arrested. Two others, Hassan Imam and Amir Reza Khan, are still absconding.

In 2005, seven of the accused, including Aftab Ansari who plotted the attack from Dubai, were convicted and awarded the death sentence. They are now lodged in Presidency jail.

An officer of Mumbai police said Sadaquat was among the 20 who had been picked up from the Cheeta Camp police station area on September 24 in connection with the serial blasts in Delhi, Ahmedabad and Surat.

The large number of anaesthetic tablets and injections found in their possession led the cops to suspect that the gang had been involved in abduction.

“Since Aftab Ansari was known to have specialised in kidnapping for ransom, Calcutta police were contacted,” said an officer.

The police said Sadaquat, an associate of Indian Mujahideen leader Amir Reza Khan, had come to the city two days before the attack and put up in the house of Jamaluddin Nasir in Tiljala First Lane.

In his statement to the police, Sadaquat has said that on the morning of January 22, 2002, he was riding pillion on a motorbike being driven by Mohammad Zayed. Sadaquat concealed the AK-47 under a shawl he had wrapped himself up in.

Less than a week later, Zayed was killed in an encounter with the police in Hazaribagh.

Investigations carried out after the shooting did not clearly reveal whether Sadaquat or Zayed had pumped the bullets into the policemen. “But now Sadaquat himself has confessed to killing the cops,” Kumar said.

Immediately after the shooting, Zayed and Sadaquat left for Hazaribagh. But a day before the encounter in which Zayed was killed, Sadaquat had left for Patna.

On hearing about his accomplice’s death, he fled to Azamgarh.

Thereafter, he travelled to Mumbai, Dubai and Pakistan, where he trained under the Huji.

In 2004, Sadaquat returned to India via Nepal.