Mumbai, Jan. 6: A young Pune-based doctor has been arrested for alleged links with the Indian Mujahideen and renting two hideouts for the terror group accused of triggering blasts across several cities last year.

Mumbai police said Anwar Ali Bagwan, who moved to Hyderabad after the crackdown on the group last September, also supplied anaesthetic drugs to the militants.

Crime branch sleuths yesterday arrested the 26-year-old, who holds an MBBS degree from BJ Medical College in Pune, after sustained interrogation revealed that he trained Indian Mujahideen members on how to administer anaesthetic drugs to kidnap victims.

“We had called him for questioning from Hyderabad after which he was arrested yesterday,” joint commissioner (crime) Rakesh Maria said.

Bagwan was produced before a special court on organised crime and sent to police remand till January 16.

“Bagwan had taken two apartments in Pune on rent in his name and had given them to members of the Indian Mujahideen for their use,” Maria said. Bagwan is a native of Ahmednagar, he added.

Maria said the apartments were given to software engineer Mansoor Peerbhoy and his associates who were part of the group’s media wing, which sent emails to news channels warning of blasts minutes before the Delhi and Ahmedabad blasts that killed dozens.

Two Mangalore-based Indian Mujahideen masterminds, Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal, whom the police have failed to trace so far, paid the cash deposits and the rent.

Maria said the doctor, a 2005 graduate, came in contact with another Indian Mujahideen member, Asif Badruddin Shaikh, after he started attending Arabic classes in 2006 and was later indoctrinated. “He was aware of the blasts conspiracy as well as the plan for kidnappings,” the officer said.

Police sources said Bagwan shifted his base to the Andhra capital after the crime branch busted the Indian Mujahideen module last September and arrested 20 activists on charges of carrying out blasts in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi, besides a series of other explosions since 2005.

The September raid yielded 10kg of ammonium nitrate, 15 detonators, 8kg of ball bearings, four electronic circuits, one submachine gun, two revolvers, 30 cartridges of 9mm carbines and eight cartridges of .38 revolvers.

The haul also included anaesthetic injections and packets of ketamine, an anaesthetic drug. Investigations revealed that the Indian Mujahideen had planned to kidnap wealthy businessmen for ransom and use the drugs to immobilise the victims during abductions.

The group had identified a prominent Pune builder and a jeweller as prime targets and even conducted a 15-day recce in early 2008, but did not execute the plan.

The kidnap plans emerged when the investigations showed that Mohammed Saddik Shaikh, one of the three founders of the Indian Mujahideen and among the 20 held, was part of the Aftab Ansari gang that was behind several abductions in Calcutta.

Police sources said Saddik used to operate under the assumed identity of Sadaqat, and was one of the shooters involved in the January 2002 attack on the American Center in Calcutta. After the attack, he had escaped to Dubai via Patna.