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India Uses Ansari's 'Extradition' To Pressure Pakistan
By IOL South Asia correspondent
NEW DELHI, Feb. 13 (IslamOnline)- New facts are emerging just four days after the 'extradition' from U.A.E. of Aftab Ansari. He is the chief suspect in the 12 January shootout outside the American Center in Kolkata. From the available details, it seems that Ansari is an ordinary criminal and not the global terrorist in which India is trying to paint him.
Ansari was brought to New Delhi by India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on February 9 accompanied by Rajendar Kumar Anadkot.
With this successful extradition from the UAE, the Indian government has increased pressure on Pakistan to act fast on the 20-man list it has handed over to Pakistan for extradition.
Ansari was wanted in India for a host of criminal cases including the abduction of a Kolkata-based businessman, Pratha Roy Burman, ransom for .one million U.S. dollars. He was also wanted for an arms smuggling case in Santhalpur in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
But the most important case was the attack on the American Center where five security personnel were killed and around two dozen others injured.
Though the Indian government has been claiming all along that the attackers had aimed at the American Center, the Americans themselves have flatly refused to buy this theory and have said that the attackers had not aimed at the center. Rather they targeted the police picket outside the Center.
Another remark of an official of the Kolkata American Center has irked the Indian authorities in which he said that there is no ISI activity in West Bengal contrary to Indian Home Ministry's persistent claims to the contrary to justify the Hindu rightist party's agenda, especially against Islamic madrasahs.
Shortly after the attack, Ansari allegedly phoned a police official in Kolkata- the third largest city in the country- and claimed 'responsibility' for the attack. He reportedly told the police officer that the attack was carried out to avenge the killing of his accomplice, Asif Reza Khan.
Indian investigators claim that Ansari has links with the Pakistan-based militant mastermind Omar Sheikh, who has been implicated in three major terrorist incidents targeting U.S. and India.
Sheikh, with whom Ansari came in contact in India's high security Tihar Jail in New Delhi, is accused to be the mastermind behind the kidnapping of the Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi.
Ansari is also said to be linked to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane IC-814 to Kandhar in 1999. Investigators also claim that he has links with Pakistani secret agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
But Ansari, who is currently under a seven-day transit in CBI custody, has reportedly denied any major 'terrorist' links, except for Ajeem Cheema, a Lashkar-e-Toiba commander. He has also reportedly denied during interrogation any role in the attack on the police picket outside the American Center.
The main accusations relate to kidnapping-for-extortion cases. This establishes that Ansari is not a terrorist but a seasoned criminal who has made huge money by abducting leading businessmen around the country.
Ansari has reportedly admitted his role in four such cases including the kidnappings of Anand Agrawal, in which he received Rs. 15 million, Niranjan Shah (Rs 2 million), Pratha Roy (Rs 47 million) and Bhasker Parekh (Rs 30 million).
Ansari's accomplice Raju, who is being interrogated separately, has also confessed to direct involvement in the abduction of Parekh and Shah.
To give a terrorist twist to an ordinary criminal case, the Indian government and its agencies, including the police and the CBI, are insisting that he was the brain behind the attack on the Kolkata American Center.
To prove this theory they have come up with a far-fetched claim that part of the money Ansari made was used to finance the attack on New York and Washington on September 11.
Reportedly, Ansari has maintained that he was not actually involved in the Kolkata case. After hearing about the incident, he got the telephone number of the Kolkata police officer from the internet and claimed responsibility.
He also denied that he was involved in the Santhalpur arms smuggling case claiming that arms and explosives were procured locally. He claimed that he met Omar Sheikh in Tihar Jail and once in Rawalpindi and had only telephone contact with him.
Meanwhile, Indian agencies have been claiming that the extradition of the duo is a 'breakthrough' in the continuing war against terrorism. But for the first time, purely on the basis of available evidence, the country was convinced that a person of Indian origin with a serious criminal record was hiding in the U.A.E.
U.A.E. authorities have made it clear that they did not work under anyone's pressure. They acted because Ansari was in their country on a false passport and there was clear evidence that he was an "scaped criminal."
India Monday February 9 issued a fresh demarche to Islamabad asking it to hand over the 20 terrorists and criminals identified by New Delhi. To buttress its case, India cited the U.A.E's prompt action in deporting Aftab Ansari.
Arun Kumar Singh, joint secretary in the External Affairs Ministry, summoned Pakistan's deputy High Commissioner, Jaleel Abbas Jilani, and pointed out that it was highly regrettable that Islamabad had not taken any action so far to apprehend and deport the 20 fugitives despite the Interpol's red corner notices issued against most of them.
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