Gujarat anti-terrorism squad (ATS) late on Sunday night arrested one of the suspects involved in the attack on American Center, Calcutta, the then US consulate building, in 2002.
A team of Gujarat ATS arrested Imam Hasan, accused of hatching the conspiracy to attack the building, from Ramesh Chowk in Aurangabad town, around 100km southwest of Patna.
The attack on the American Center took place on January 22, 2002, at 6.30am when the policemen were changing shifts. Six cops were killed and at least 21 injured. In 2005, seven of the accused, including Aftab Ansari who plotted the attack from Dubai, were convicted and awarded death sentence. Later in 2014, the Supreme Court commuted to life term the death penalty on Ansari and Jamiluddin Nasir, another convict, who happens to be Hasan's maternal uncle.
Gujarat police had helped Calcutta police in investigation of this case and had been working to nab all the suspects since the attack. The team was camping in the district headquarters town for the past five days.
Hasan, in his mid 40s, is a resident of Nawadih locality in Aurangabad district. He ran a garments shop at Ramesh Chowk under the name of Arif Hasan.
"We extended full cooperation to the Gujarat police team, which was on the lookout for the terror suspect for the past five days. The team left for Gujarat with the arrested person on Sunday," Aurangabad superintendent of police Satya Prakash said on Monday. "There was no case pending against him in Aurangabad."
A reliable source in Intelligence Bureau said Hasan was a member of the outlawed terror outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islam. Besides, he was associated with the "Asif Raza Commando Force" allegedly formed by Ansari.
Ansari had got his passport issued from the Patna regional passport office on the basis of forged documents in which he claimed to be a resident of Biharsharif's Garhpar locality in Nalanda district.
The source said Hasan got in touch with Ansari and provided a motorbike, which was used in the American Center attack. He also provided accommodation to the attackers. "During his interrogation, Hasan confessed to his involvement in the US center attack case," a senior official in the Gujarat ATS told The Telegraph over phone.
Hasan, the interrogators claimed of revealing, went to Hazaribagh in Jharkhand and stayed there for a couple of years. His brother in-law Adil Hassan was also a convict in the case, the ATS official quoted Hasan as saying.
The official, on the condition of anonymity, said Hasan was wanted in several cases related to anti-national activities and the Arms Act in Gujarat's Ahmedabad district. "He came under surveillance of the state ATS in the wake of the Uri army base attack on September 18," he added.
Subsequently, an ATS team headed by inspector Brahma Bhatt visited Aurangabad in south Bihar and nabbed Hasan, who later settled in Aurangabad district after the attack on the US center. The ATS was keeping tabs on members of sleeper cells and suspects involved in terror cases in the aftermath of the Uri attack. "We have informed out counterparts in Calcutta about Hasan's arrest from Bihar," the official said.
Hasan's wife Rahbari Arju, better known as Ruby, however, denied the charge levelled at her husband. She said he had never visited Gujarat and has been implicated. Hasan was an office-bearer of Aurangabad Footpath Dookandar Sangh, she told The Telegraph.
Aurangabad had earlier hogged the limelight when the name of Haider Ali, an alleged associate of Indian Mujahidden co-founder Yasin Bhatkal, figured in the Patna and Bodhgaya bomb blast cases. Ali, also known as Abdullah, had earlier worked for IM's Darbhanga module.
National Investigation Agency officers arrested Yasin, who formed the Darbhanga module, from Raxaul near the India-Nepal border in East Champaran district in 2013.
Ali, originally from Khiriama village in Aurangabad district, was later arrested by NIA that conducted the probe into the Bihar blasts.
