“Gifts from the Gulf” continues…

Aquib Ali Khan a.k.a. Firasat was brought to Delhi. A young man in his early thirties, he was every bit a hardened jihadist. I remember being present when he was interrogated. He disclosed he worked for Asif Raza Khan, a gangster from Kolkata, and it was at Asif’s behest that he was overseeing the smuggling of arms from across the Indo-Pak border. He further said Asif was arrested by the Delhi Police only a few days earlier and gave the name of a Hindi newspaper and the rough date when he had seen a report on his arrest.

The news-item on Asif’s arrest was retrieved. It mentioned his having been arrested at Lodhi Garden by a team headed by Assistant Commissioner of Police Ravi Shankar of Delhi Police’s Crime Branch on Oct 29, 2001. I reported the developments to my Director P.C. Sharma and requested him to speak with his batch-mate Ajai Raj Sharma, the then Commissioner of Police, Delhi. We needed to interrogate Asif Raza Khan, who was still in the custody of the Delhi Police. Very soon, I got a call from the then Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) that we were welcome to interview Asif at the Crime Branch office complex in Chanakya Puri.

During interrogation, Asif disclosed that he was a member of a gang headed by Aftab Ansari, originally from Varanasi. He confessed working with Aftab in several sensational kidnappings for ransom like those of jeweller Bhaskar Parekh of Rajkot and Partha Roy Burman of Kolkata. Aftab, he said, operated under various assumed names—including Abdal, Farhan Malik, Gupta Ji, Azhar, Hero, Amaan etc.—and was then based in Dubai.

To be continued…