German Bakery blast plot hatched in Colombo: Charge-sheet

PUNE - The plot to bomb the German Bakery in Pune on the eve of Valentine’s Day (Feb 13) was hatched in Colombo in March 2008, according to the charge-sheet filed by the Maharashtra Police’s Anti-Terrorist Squad in a local court here.

Himayat Baig, the alleged mastermind, had secured training in assembling explosives in Colombo, said the 2,500-page charge-sheet filed before Judicial Magistrate S. Bose Saturday. A copy of the charge-sheet was handed over to Baig when he was brought to the magistrate’s court Monday.

Sharing details from the charge-sheet, Baig’s lawyer A. Rahman said Baig has been accused of planning the German Bakery terror attack in Colombo with Sayyed Ansari and Faiyaz Kagdi, who are among six still wanted in the case.

According to the charge-sheet, Baig was trained by two other co-accused in the same case, who are still absconding, when they had visited Sri Lanka in March 2008.

Baig had later gone to Mumbai in January 2010 along with two other wanted accused - Mohsin Choudhary and Mohammed Zarar alias Yaseen Bhatkal - to buy a rucksack to plant the bomb and a Nokia cellphone, Rahman said, quoting the charge-sheet filed by the ATS.

The bomb went off around 5 p.m. on the evening of Feb 13 when the German Bakery was teeming with people as it was Valentines Day eve.

The toll was 17 dead, including four foreigners, and over 60 injured in the terror mayhem which shook the states academic and IT capital.

After nearly six months of investigations, the ATS finally managed to nab Baig and has named six other accused - Bhatkal, Choudhary, Ansari, Kagdi, Riyaz Bhatkal and Iqbal Bhatkal. All of them are absconding.

Baig has been charged under different sections of the Indian Penal Code, Explosive Substances Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

The ATS also informed the magistrate Monday that it had not included the names of some witnesses in the charge-sheet in order to protect their identity, but Rahman asserted that he would challenge this since Baig had denied all the charges against him.

The magistrate also transferred the case to the Pune sessions court where a special judge will take it up for hearing.