Who's the real Abu Jindal aka Zabiuddin Ansari? This is one of the most disturbing questions that the residents of Beed and Gevrai towns, in the dusty cotton bowl of Beed district in Maharashtra, are trying to come to terms with ever since news broke out that intelligence agencies have identified one of the handlers from Pakistan, who spoke to the 26/11 terrorists at the Chabad House, as Syed Zabiuddin Syed Zakiuddin aka Abu Jindal.
Sayed Zabiuddin alias Abu Jundal's first brush with the law came at the age of 22 when he was arrested in Maharashtra in 2003 for allegedly stabbing a woman with whom his family had a marital dispute. Zabiuddin, the arrested key handler of 26/11, had attacked Fateema Sheikh Jaleel with a sword and also attempted to burn her, according to Maharashtra police sources.
In the backdrop of arrest and interrogation of Abu Jundal, Home Minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday there was clearly state support to the terrorists responsible for the 26/11 massacre in Mumbai.
"Since the investigation of the Special Cell of Delhi Police with which the custody of the accused is in full swing, it would not be appropriate for this court to cut short his (Jundal) police custody and handover his custody to Mumbai Police," Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Vinod Yadav said.
Having sought the custody of alleged lashkar-e-Tayiba handler of 26/11 terrorists Abu Jundal from a Delhi court, Mumbai police are now gearing up to confront him with the lone surviving perpetrator of the brazen attacks Ajmal Kasab.
The Mumbai police on Tuesday moved a court in New Delhi seeking custody of alleged 26/11 Mumbai terror attack key handler Abu Jundal, who is currently in the custody of the special cell of the Delhi police.
Delhi police is likely to seek an extension of remand of 26/11 handler Abu Jundal, which may put a spanner in Mumbai police's efforts to question him soon.
While confirming that the voice in the slideshow was that of Moosa, senior police officials did not rule out the possibility that the banned IS terror group was trying to create a base in the Valley.
Observing that the Indian Navy is prepared to tackle 26/11-type attack from outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, Admiral Nirmal Verma on Tuesday said the "core concern" of the maritime force was about the coalescing of state and non-state actors.
Mumbai police are likely to seek extension of Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative and 26/11 handler Sayed Ansari alias Abu Jundal's custody on several grounds including that he is yet to elaborate on the role of other conspirators and that his voice samples are needed to be taken.
Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative and 26/11 handler Sayed Ansari alias Abu Jundal has revealed that the terror organisation has plans to carry out at least 10 more attacks across India, for which, he had expressed his willingness to participate, police said on Friday.
The JeM terrorists also carried 'armoured piercing steel core ammunition' which can go through Level 3 protection bulletproof vehicles that police and other security forces use, they said. The ammunition was in large quantity and could have posed a grave threat, top police officials said.
The custody of two alleged Indian Mujahideen members, brought to New Delhi from a Bangalore jail, was on Monday given to Delhi police for ten days by a court in the Jama Masjid attack case in which Mumbai's 26/11 terrorists' handler Abu Jundal is also an accused.
The National Investigation Agency on Friday told a Delhi court that it has been unable to get the custody of 26/11 key handler Abu Jundal, whom it wanted to interrogate for unearthing the conspiracy hatched by the Lashkar-e-Tayiba for terror strikes across India.
The NIA said it was making the plea to get the custody of Jundal alias Syed Zaibuddin from the Delhi Police, as it had registered a case on June 8 on the orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs about the alleged conspiracy hatched by the deported terrorist and others to wage war against India.
India believes that Lashkar-e-Tayiba founder Hafiz Saeed was with 26/11 key handler Abu Jundal in the control room set up in Pakistan with some kind of 'state support', Home Minister P Chidambaram said on New Delhi.
Apart from being a top ranking terrorist in the Lashkar-e-Tayiba circles, Abu Jundal is giving investigators a tough time with the speed at which he talks. Investigators say that he speaks so fast and continuously that they are finding it difficult to grasp what he says.
Close on the heels of India announcing the arrest of a key handler of terrorists who struck Mumbai in 2008, Pakistan has said that it was trying to collect details from India on the matter.
Madhuri Gupta, who had served at the Indian high commission in Islamabad, was convicted under Sections 3 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act which attract a maximum sentence of three years and fine or both.
Ever since the arrest of lone surviving Pakistani 26/11 gunman Ajmal Kasab, there has been talk about the amount that is being spent on his security. While his daily expenditure has been estimated at Rs 3.5 lakh, the amount spent on him so far is close to around Rs 48 crore, of which the charges of the Indo Tibetan Border Police alone is Rs 31 crore.
Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of Pakistan-based terror group JeM has not been arrested nor has he been put under house arrest.
The now-deported Israeli couple Shneor Zalman and Yaffa Shenoi were in India on a multiple entry visa and were residing at the Rose Street at Fort Kochi in Kerala. Meanwhile, the police and the Intelligence Bureau continue to question the local handler who was helping out the Israeli couple. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
'Brylcreem' and '30 plus' were some of the codes used for monetary transactions between Pakistan's snooping agency Inter-Services Intelligence and Kashmiri propagandist Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, who was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently.
Speaking at a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee, Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: "There are mixed signals here that are very, very troubling and that the United States needs to be able to have alternatives for carrying out its foreign policy in that region."
According to these documents, unsealed after Chicago Tribune petitioned before the court, Major Iqbal, said to be an ISI officer, also gave him Indian currency notes for his operation in India.
A young Pakistani national living in a suburb of Washington has pleaded guilty to providing material support to terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba by making a propaganda video.
In the fourth and concluding part of the series ProPublica's Sebastian Rotella talks about how Laskar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley was finally nabbed by United States law enforcement agencies, but only after he hoodwinked them for seven years. But the epilogue in the story is rather like the prologue: full of impunity and mystery
India on Monday said the killing of terrorist Osama bin Laden by American forces, somewhere 'deep inside Pakistan', was a matter of grave concern as it proved that terrorists belonging to different groups find sanctuary in the neighbouring country.Chidambaram said in a statement that perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the controllers and handlers of the terrorists, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan.
Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence was planning recruitment of retired Indian military personnel to penetrate into the system and then use them for its anti-India activities, according to Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Headley.
Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley, who has pleaded guilty to charges of his involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks, would testify against his Pakistani handlers Illyas Kashmiri and Sajid Mir, a United States attorney has said.
Gujarat Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is the top-most target for all four major terror outfits in India, according to Indian Mujahideen's recently-arrested chief Yasin Bhatkal.
After two failed attempts to strike Mumbai in September and October 2008, Pakistani handlers of the 26/11 accused David Headley began planning the attack on India's financial capital "more closely than ever" in early November that year.
In his last surveillance trip to India before 26/11, David C Headley, the Mumbai attacks terror accused, at the instruction of his Pakistani handler Major Iqbal bought 15 red bracelets to be worn by the attackers so that they can disguise as Hindus, according to released unsealed court documents.
In the wake of the current unrest in the country, the panic-stricken family of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has reportedly fled Egypt for the luxurious refuge of their London townhouse. According to reports circulating in Britain's Egyptian community, President Mubarak and wife Suzanne are planning to head to their London townhouse.
The sports fraternity came out in support of Mahendra Singh Dhoni for wearing the dagger insignia on his wicketkeeping gloves during India's World Cup game against South Africa.
A suspected Pakistani spy was on Thursday arrested from Indo-Pak international border in Rajasthan, police said. The arrested, identified as Ismail Khan, used to work as an Inter-Services Intelligence agent, a senior police officer said.
There will be only three ground handlers at each of the six metro airports in the country.
Terrorists are using the internet as the "most potent tool" to rope in youths and carry out espionage operations in the country, Home Secretary G K Pillai said on Monday.
The arrest of four militants, including two young suicide bombers, in Karachi has once again highlighted the dangerous trend of how the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is using local maulvis and handlers to poison the mind of innocent youngsters and send them to the tribal Waziristan mountainous region to become suicide bombers.
The much hyped-up trial of Pakistani-Canadian 26/11 terror accused Tahawwur Rana has finally come to a close in the United States and one could say with confidence it did not end the way in which many, especially in India, would have expected it to be.
