Arrested terror suspect wanted ‘blood-soaked Holi’

GANDHINAGAR - A “careless” conversation led Kashmiri terror suspect Bashir Ahmed Baba, who was nabbed in Gujarat Saturday night, straight into the hands of waiting policemen.

Highly-placed sources in the police said that Bashir, who arrived in Ahmedabad Feb 20, used to make frequent calls to his home state.

Getting emboldened over the days, he also began making calls to his Hizbul Mujahideen handler Bilal Shera in Pakistan. In one such careless call made prior to Holi he is reported to have remarked that there was no fun in a Holi with colours and one steeped in blood would be more in keeping with the spirit of festivities this time.

Security agencies entrusted with screening suspect calls to terrorist hotbeds traced the conversation and subsequently the Gujarat ATS was tipped off. Bashir was tracked and subsequently picked up.

Bashir was produced before a magistrate in Ahmedabad and taken on 14 days remand late on Sunday night.

Ostensibly in Ahmedabad to be trained in setting up a cleft lip surgery camp in Kashmir for the Kemaya Foundation where he was employed as a camp assistant, Bashir was using the telephone and the laptop of the local doctor who had allowed him to stay in his flat.

ATS sources said that the flat-owning doctor was unaware of the terror background of Bashir and the use his phone and flat were being put to. Bashir’s extravagant lifestyle with food being ordered from McDonald’s daily also drew the attention of neighbours who later spilled the details to investigating cops, the source said.

Director General Police, Gujarat, S.S. Khandwawala when asked as to how Bashir was allowed to stay in a flat despite a notification making it mandatory for anyone renting his property to inform the cops - said that action would be taken against violators of the law.