As chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi had taken it upon himself to break the backbone of the Indian Mujahideen and SIMI. That campaign has now reached its conclusion. In connection with the blasts that were carried out on July 26, 2008, an Ahmedabad special court on Friday handed the death sentence to 38 people associated with the SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. 49 accused were found guilty. All the accused were tried under UAPA. While 38 have got the death penalty, 11 have been given life imprisonment. These 11 will be in jail until they die. The serial blasts had claimed the lives of 56 people and more than 250 were injured.
The very next day of the blasts, Narendra Modi as chief minister had called a meeting of the senior police officers of the state. He himself held the home affairs portfolio while Amit Shah was the junior minister. Modi had said at that time that the case needed a thorough and swift probe. He had said that if the state police cracked this case, then not only Gujarat, but it would be a huge service to the nation. He would hold meetings with state police officers daily, and review the condition and direction of the investigation. At last, in 20 days, the conspiracy was exposed.
On August 16, 2008, Gujarat police organised a press conference and revealed the many layers of the whole plot one by one. During the investigation, they came to know how Indian Mujahideen had carried out the attack at the behest of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI. The thread in this conspiracy ran from Maharashtra, UP, Karnataka and Kerala up to Pakistan. During the investigation, Delhi’s Batla House also came into focus and Gujarat police shared this lead with their counterparts in the national capital, who then raided the place. As far as exposing the conspiracy in the Ahmedabad serial blasts case is concerned, this was the result of the collective efforts of the senior police officers of Gujarat.
The first lead in the case came from Rakesh Asthana who was Vadodara’s police commissioner at the time and now holds the same post in Delhi. A module of SIMI caught Asthana’s attention and there were indications that some of its members were involved in the blasts. Even the Intelligence Bureau (IB) at the Centre had got some leads.
Another important lead came from officers of the Crime Branch of Ahmedabad, led at the time by Ashish Bhatia who is now the director general of police (DGP) in Gujarat. Some more officers played a very important role in unearthing this conspiracy, including Abhay Chudasma, Himanshu Shukla, Tarun Barot, and others.
For the first time, the analysis of mobile tower locations was effectively used in this case. The education of Himanshu Shukla, who had a BTech degree in Electronics from IIT Kharagpur before joining the civil services, proved very useful. It was Shukla who had apprehended Mufti Bashar in UP.
The then minister of state for home of Gujarat, Amit Shah, and the then DGP PC Pandey were continuously giving necessary guidance to the officers and removing any impediments that came in their way. There were many challenges in bringing Bashar to Ahmedabad from Lucknow by special plane and Modi himself had to intervene in this.
Modi’s words as chief minister that cracking the serial blasts case would be a service to the nation came true. After this conspiracy was exposed, serial blasts ceased in the country. The backbone of the Indian Mujahideen was broken. The Gujarat police very meticulously put up this case before the court. The case was so foolproof that during the 14-year-long trial, barring one or two exceptions, none of the accused could step out of jail. And finally, now that the perpetrators have been handed their punishment, the families of the victims have received some solace.
On a personal level, as a journalist, it was satisfying to cover this case. I was getting all the leads but was not publishing them in larger interest as there was the danger that the perpetrators could escape. At one point, it seemed that this whole investigation would be offered to a big journalist from Delhi as an exclusive story. When this suspicion arose, I contacted the person who was monitoring the investigation. I shared all the information and he too was surprised. But he promised that the day the investigation would end, I would be the first person to know. And that too happened.
Exactly two hours before the press conference, his most trusted colleague and a minister in the state cabinet called me and shared all the information with me in an orderly manner and said that I was free to go on air with it. As a reporter, this gave me immense pleasure: I got the exclusive, and a promise was kept.
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