Anti-Terrorism Squad officers, who initially investigated the Aurangabad arms haul case, on Tuesday revealed that Zabiuddin Ansari, alias Abu Jundal, had visited the city a day before the cache of arms was recovered.
According to officials, during the visit, Jundal, along with two accomplices, had freshened up in the room of NCP MLC and minister of state for education Faujiya Khan.
“Jundal left Beed at around 8 pm on May 8, 2006 and drove to Mumbai along with Faiyaz Kagzi and Ijaz in the Tata Sumo that contained the arms. He reached Mumbai at 4 am the following day and went to the MLA hostel, where the trio freshened up in Ms Khan’s room. Jundal then dropped his two accomplices to the airport and left for Nashik. In Nashik, Jundal met Maulana Amir. Jundal handed over the Tata Sumo to Amir and one Raja drove the car to Aurangabad, while Jundal got himself a Tata Indica, which he drove to Malegaon. He, however, sensed that he was being followed by the police, so he abandoned the car in Malegaon and slipped away,” said an officer who investigated the case.
When contacted, Ms Khan said that the allegations were untrue and that her name had been cleared long ago by investigators in the case. “The allegation that Jundal stayed in my room in MLA hostel is completely untrue. At the time, I had two rooms in the hostel, one which I personally used and the other which my personal assistant gave to needy persons from our constituency who would visit the city. On that particular day, I was in Parbhani and the records do not show that this man used my room. This was even clarified by home minister R.R. Patil after investigations by the IB and the state police,” Ms Khan said.
In a related development, crime branch sources said that apart from the three cases — the 26/11 terror raids, Aurangabad arms haul and German Bakery blast case — Jundal was also arrested in an attempt to murder case in 2003, in which he had jumped bail. “We will be getting the details of the case from Beed, where the case was registered,” said a senior crime branch officer.
Niket Kaushik, additional commissioner of crime, said that the crime branch team has already submitted a production warrant in Delhi court seeking Jundal’s custody.
A senior officer from the crime branch said that they would adopt the strategy of Delhi police, which is interrogating Jundal at a remote location in Gurgaon for security reasons.