India points finger at Pakistan for Delhi court blasts

The Indian media claimed on Sunday that the September 7 New Delhi high court terrorist attack was carried out by two Pakistanis from Lahore, citing Wasim Akram Malik, who allegedly masterminded the operation to save Afzal Guru, the man convicted of attacks on the Indian parliament, from being sent to the gallows. Times Now quoted sources as saying Malik had identified the two bombers as Saifullah and Bilal, both residents of Lahore. He reportedly told interrogators that the two were aged between 25 and 30 years. Although he had feigned ignorance about the affiliations of the two bombers with terrorist groups, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) team and the Occupied Jammu and Kashmir police handling the case suspected that the two could be linked with either Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Muhammad, Times Now reported. The details provided by Malik were seen as a breakthrough for investigators and a success for counter-terror agencies after a barren spell when investigations into a number of terrorism cases that started with Pune’s Germany Bakery blast hit dead ends, the report said.
Malik, who ‘confessed’ to having masterminded the crime to deter authorities from executing Guru, told the interrogators that he had reckoned that attack on the high court would force the authorities to put the hanging of the parliament attack convict on hold.
A direct threat to the Indian Supreme Court was issued for the same objective, Malik, a medical student in Bangladesh, told the investigators. Times Now quoted sources as saying the chief conspirator was encouraged by the lax security arrangements at the high court. His younger brother Junaid, allegedly a Hizbul Mujahideen member and a co-accused in the case, had conducted a reconnaissance visit to the court premises at the end of June when he came home for vacation. He noticed the absence of police pickets around the complex, investigators said.
On reaching Kishatwar – his home town – Malik discussed the plans with Junaid and his close friend Amir Ali Kamal, both of whom have eluded the NIA and the police so far. Kamal, who had studied with Malik in Jammu, was tasked with arranging for two bombers. Another accused, Amir Abbas Dev, was given the responsibility of arranging two people to send an email to highlight the “Save Afzal Guru” objective of the terrorist attack, which he had timed for after the Eid festivities.
Malik, who had left for Bangladesh in July, contacted his accomplices on the phone at least twice, said the report. He got in touch with the co-conspirators immediately following his return to India on August 27. He gathered information from Kamal about the recruitment of Saifullah and Bilal. All the plotters congregated at a mosque on September 3, where they reviewed the preparations, with Dev informing Malik that the email had been drafted and two people enlisted to send it. As instructed by Malik, the draft, to be emailed two hours after the blast, claimed that the blast was carried out by Harkat-ul-Jehadi-Islami (HuJI). The choice of the name was dictated by the consideration to deflect attention from the involvement of Hizbul Mujahideen.
The conspirators reckoned that the red herring would throw the investigators off the trail since HuJI had virtually become defunct. Wasim and others saw Saifullah and Bilal off on September 4, with the instructions that the bombers would not use phones or any other means of communication to contact the other plotters.
LINE OF CONTROL: Separately, India blamed Pakistani troops for firing on Indian forward posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district on Sunday. “There was firing by machine guns from the Pakistan side along the LoC on Indian posts in Poonch at around 2230 hours (10.30pm) on Saturday night after the army detected movement of some suspected elements close to the border,” a senior Pakistan Army officer said. He added that the Indian army retaliated and the exchange of fire continued for about one-and-a-half hours.“The Pakistani troops fired from their Daku and Yellow Bump posts opposite our KG forward belt,” the officer said, adding that there were no casualties on the Indian side.