“Gifts from the Gulf” continues…

Rajeev’s team had arrested most of the perpetrators of the Burman kidnapping case except the ringleaders Aftab Ansari and Asif Raza Khan. During our protracted interactions, we had hit off well and developed a good rapport with each other. I had carefully catalogued the stray bits of information on Aftab given by Rajeev. Many other inputs on Aftab had emerged during the interrogation of Asif Raza Khan by us in the Santalpur Arms Case. My batch-mate Sudhir Sinha, the then Commissioner of Police, Rajkot, was investigating the Bhaskar Parekh kidnapping case. He too had shared several inputs on Aftab and his gang that with me. I put them all together and prepared a dossier on Aftab annexing with it a copy of his passport file obtained from Patna Passport Office.

When I spoke with Rajeev on the morning of Jan 22, 2002, he gave me details of the terror attack in Kolkata in which four policemen had been killed and several others injured. The terrorists had come riding two motorcycles at 6.30 am and opened fire indiscriminately on policemen deployed at the American Centre as changing of guard was in progress. The policemen had been caught totally by surprise and couldn’t react. Rajeev had received a call at his residence on his landline from one Farhan Malik claiming responsibility for the attack. Having heard Aftab’s voice recorded during the Burman kidnapping case investigations, Rajeev addressed him by his real name. That caught the caller by surprise and he hung up. Aftab then called Anand Bazar Patrika, a Kolkata newspaper, posing to be Farhan Malik and claimed responsibility for the terror attack. It was this news that was flashed all over and had reached the Home Secretary’s ears in Hotel Ashok that morning.

To be continued…