The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Tuesday, February 12, 2002, Chandigarh, India

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M A I N N E W S

Ansari’s arrest was kept secret
Abu Salem fiasco made govt cautious
Rajeev Sharma
Tribune News Service

* The computer-savvy Ansari requested the CBI for a computer. He wanted to play computer games to beat boredom. The request was rejected on security grounds.

* Soon after his arrest, Ansari told the CBI that he was a diabetic. Aware that diabetes gets aggravated in stressful conditions, the CBI is being careful about the kind of food being given to him and is monitoring his blood sugar level.

* All eatables being given to Ansari are first tested for possible poison, a privilege normally reserved for the Prime Minister and foreign dignitaries on official visit.

* One of the biggest catches of the CBI in recent years, Ansari is being kept under extremely tight security. He and another deported criminal from the UAE, Raju Sharma, alias Rajender Kumar Anadkot, are being kept in CBI lock-ups on the ground floor of the CBI Headquarters at Block 3, CGO Complex.

* The interrogation of Ansari is being videotaped. It is being conducted in the CBI’s interrogation room on the second floor.

New Delhi, February 11
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister L.K. Advani knew of Aftab Ansari’s arrest in Dubai the day he was picked up by the UAE authorities on January 23 but maintained utmost secrecy, learning from the recent Abu Salem fiasco.

Now the immediate strategy of the Vajpayee government is to increase pressure on Pakistan to make it emulate the UAE example and act on India’s long-pending list of 20 Pakistan-based terrorists and criminals. To achieve this objective, the government contemplates to announce a fresh round of diplomatic offensive measures if Pakistan does not act in near future, well-placed sources said here today.

India had been told through diplomatic channels the very day Ansari was picked up by the UAE authorities and the Prime Minister shared the information with Mr Advani. The two decided to keep the information under wraps — virtually giving it a budget-type secrecy — because they did not want the Ansari story to go the Abu Salem way.

Salem had been detained in the UAE on October 28 and India had been informed immediately through Interpol channels. As the information came through the channels, several agencies got wind of it, including the Maharashtra police.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister Chhagan Bhujbal leaked the news to the media, putting the underworld on alert. When the UAE authorities demanded evidence to establish the identity of Abu Salem and his alleged criminal acts, the authorities here had to lick the dust.

Abu Salem, an Indian, had got his passport issued from Lucknow but the file concerned vanished overnight when search was made for it. Similarly, his fingerprints were also not available with the Indian authorities. As a result, the UAE released Salem in early November.

This time, the CBI acted admirably fast and did its homework. The CBI sent a team to the UAE immediately after Ansari’s apprehension in Dubai and came back after enlisting the UAE’s requirements. Some days later, another CBI team was sent to the UAE with necessary documents.

Immense pressure from the USA was also instrumental in Ansari’s deportation to India.

Sources disclosed that Ansari’s interrogation had so far yielded a rich harvest of information. His interrogation was being solely handled by the Intelligence Bureau. A senior official of the level of the Joint Director was heading the interrogation team.

Raju Undakat, a key accused in the Kolkata shooting case, on arrival at Ahmedabad airport from Delhi on Monday. — PTI photo

Other agencies like the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), CBI, and police forces of Delhi, Gujarat and West Bengal would also be interrogating him.

Ansari’s interrogation has revealed that he owns a nightclub “Mehfil” in Dubai, besides two houses. As per the initial estimates, he has amassed a fortune close to Rs 50 crore through extortion and criminal activities. This figure pales into insignificance in comparison to his peer Dawood Ibrahim who is believed to be running an underworld empire of over Rs 1,000 crore.

Ansari aspired to be one-up over Dawood and built a larger underworld empire than him. So far, the two have not crossed each other’s path as the ISI has been cautious in restricting Ansari’s activities to Lahore and Rawalpindi while Dawood reigns supreme in Pakistan’s commercial capital, Karachi.

Meanwhile, a PTI report said the CBI has not ruled out the possibility of invoking POTO against Ansari.

CBI sources said the agency was working on a possibility of applying POTO against Ansari in the case of smuggling of arms and ammunition, including deadily RDX into the country from Pakistan through Gujarat border.

India’s charge ‘to mar’ Musharraf’s US visit

Islamabad, February 11
Pakistan tonight said Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s charge that Aftab Ansari, the man accused in the attack on the American Centre at Kolkata, had ISI links would not be received with any “credence” by the international community and charged India with making such allegations to mar the visit of President Pervez Musharraf to Washington beginning tomorrow.

“Labelling Aftab Ansari as a Pakistani or an Indian holding a Pakistani passport will no longer be received with any credence by international community, nor, indeed, in India itself,” particularly so after Mr Vajpayee’s reference to a conspiracy within the country to incite violence, a statement circulated by state-owned news agency APP said quoting an official spokesman.

It said the Indian Government should look within India for the “elements who were suffering from Indian policies of repression and were taking on to violence within its states and territories.”

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan earlier declined to react to Mr Vajpayee’s charges about Ansari’s Pakistani links stating that it had become a habit for India to make such allegations. PTI