Investigators of Mumbai’s Anti-Terrorism Squad have been left confused after a diary containing direct phone numbers of all ministers and celebrities in the state was recovered from a small-time Nashik thief. The thief and his accomplice were arrested on Sunday for making a threatening call to chief minister Ashok Chavan. ATS officers, who had expected to arrest a psychotic or someone affiliated to a terror organisation, are now trying to find out the motive that drove a thief to make such a phone call.
Small-time thief Abdul Gani Shah was arrested from outside Deolali railway station after he called the chief minister’s official residence, Varsha, on Saturday and threatened to kill Mr Chavan. Shah’s accomplice Harishchandra Yadav was detained on Saturday night in Jalgaon. “We have recovered eight SIM cards from Shah and a diary containing the telephone numbers of several ministers,” ATS chief Rakesh Maria said on Sunday.
“We are now ascertaining whether Yadav was voluntarily involved with Shah or if the latter used Yadav’s phone without his knowledge,” an officer said.
Mr Maria said that Shah had earlier been arrested in two theft cases by the Nashik police and also under the Essential Commodities Act. “We suspect that he had made several such calls earlier. He is currently in the custody of the Nashik railway police and we will interrogate him once we get his custody,” he said.
A person, claiming to be member of terror outfit Al Qaeda, had telephoned the Mr Chavan’s official residence on Saturday and sought to know the whereabouts of the chief minister. The police had described it as a “prank call”.
ATS officers will now seek a transit remand of Shah from a Nashik court and produce him in a court in Mumbai on Monday.