Ex-Wipro agent may have hacked Haywood's comp

17 Aug 2008, 0114 hrs IST,TNN

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Taufique Bilal, the man the Gujarat Police suspects of being one of the master minds of the terror plot that killed 57 people in Ahmedabad last month, is a Mumbai resident. Senior Mumbai cops on Saturday said they had picked up a few persons in the city following the Ahmedabad blasts in July. "One of them could be Taufique but we are not announcing anything till we ascertain his antecedents," one of the officials said.

Computer engineer Taufique worked for a Wipro direct selling agent between 1996 and 1998, when he quit the job and joined the Students Islamic Movement of India. He is suspected to have hacked into US national Ken Haywood's computer to send the Indian Mujahideen e-mail that warned of the terror attack on Ahmedabad just before the bombs actually went off.

The Anti-Terrorism Squad in Mumbai stopped short of officially disclosing Taufique's identity on Saturday. "We have on our list of suspects 12 engineers. One of the persons on that list was named by Gujarat cops on Saturday," ATS chief and joint commissioner of police Hemant Karkare said. The ATS also claimed to have provided the names of three of the 10 persons arrested by Gujarat cops. "The three are Sajid Mansoori, Shamshuddin Sheikh and Arif Qazi," an official said. Taufique, ATS officials said in Mumbai a few hours after Gujarat Police named him as one of the prime suspects in the Ahmedabad blasts, was a resident of Mira Road's Nayanagar on the northern fringes of the city.

He left his home two years back and was absconding since then. "His family, however, still stays there," an official said. "Family members claim they have lost all contact but we are keeping a close watch on them."


Taufique has worked in top IT locations Bangalore and Hyderabad; both cities have been targeted by terrorists as part of their gameplan to haemorrhage India economically. 'Taufique Bilal a master hacker' Mumbai ATS officials on Saturday agreed with Gujarat cops about techie Taufique Bilal's importance.

He not only masterminded the Ahmedabad blasts along with the Azamgarh maulvi, Bashar, but officials familiar with the probe said he was the shrewdest of the lot. It was he who primed the circuitry in the devices the terrorists had planned to set off in Surat, the officials claimed.

Described as "young and intense", he headed the technical support group comprising computer- and tech-savvy youth who — seduced by the appeal of Simi's jihadi propaganda — joined it and helped the outfit carry out some of its deadliest terror strikes.

Officials said Taufique was conversant with the latest in computer technology and was a master hacker; it was this attribute that he used to get into Haywood's computer. And, considering that similar Indian Mujahideen e-mails had preceded two other bombings (in Jaipur and in courts in different Uttar Pradesh cities), he could be linked to those two carnages as well.

It is significant that Gujarat cops, while announcing the spectacular breakthrough in the investigations into Ahmedabad bombings, talked about the "indications" that those arrested by them were involved in the Jaipur and Faizabad (UP) blasts. Terror outfits the world over have tried to recruit people who have knowhow about computers and micro-chips and a familiarity with complex chemical explosives.

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