Hyderabad, July 17: In November 2009, a motorcycle-borne assailant killed a personnel of the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and three civilians in a shootout in Khandwa region in Madhya Pradesh.
Investigators there compared the Khandwa shootout with the one at Falaknuma last year, on the Mecca Masjid blast anniversary, and found striking similarities between the two, especially the modus operandi.
Even the weapon from which the bullet was fired in the two shootouts appeared similar.
Was Viqaruddin Ahmed, the jihadi arrested here yesterday, involved in the Khandwa shootout too? Sources in the Madhya Pradesh police told Express over telephone that there were a lot of similarities in the Falaknuma and Khandwa shootouts. Though the MP police questioned several suspects there, they could not get any leads and the government there announced a reward of Rs one lakh.
A team from MP ATS would come to the city shortly, once the Hyderabad police get Viqar’s custody, to probe whether it was Viqar who killed the ATS constable Sitaram Yadav and three other civilians in the shootout.
“It was the job of a member of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and in all possibility, it could be Viqar himself,’’ a senior police official from MP said.
The ATS constable was assigned the task of keeping an eye on the SIMI network in Khandwa region, which has been a major base of SIMI members. While the constable was the intended target of the assailant, the civilians died when they tried to nab him. The official said the Khandwa shootout was planned before December 6, the Babri Masjid demolition day.
“The only difference between the two shootouts is that in the Falaknuma incident, Viqar left behind a pamphlet in the name of Tehreek Galba-e-Islam (TGI), which was missing in the Khandwa incident,’’ sources said.
Another key link why MP police believe Viqar’s involvement in Khandwa shootout is that top SIMI leaders based in MP, including Qamruddin Nagori, maintained constant touch with some fundamentalists based in Saidabad here.
In fact, Viqar had been circulating the CDs containing provocative speeches by top SIMI leader Shahi Badr Falahi in Saidabad and some pockets of the old city for quite sometime.
–Agencies