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Onkar Singh in Srinagar,
Jammu and Kashmir police is now actively investigating the links between Maulana Masood Azhar's outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Osama bin Laden.
"We have enough information that the two have deep rooted links and are operating hand in glove for spreading terrorism around the World," a senior official of the Jammu and Kashmir police told rediff.com.
After the October 1 car bomb blast in Jammu and Kashmir assembly premises, in which 35 people lost their lives, the state CID department has asked all the district superintendents of police to fish out all the available information about the activities of Jaish-e-Mohammad.
"I have asked the district police chiefs to coordinate with our state CID, and provide all information about the Jaish activists in the state, and list out all the crimes that have been committed by the members of this terrorist outfit," state police chief A K Suri told rediff.com in an exclusive interview on Thursday.
As a result of this directive, the Jammu and Kashmir CID department has now dusted out the confessions of Masood Azhar, which it had obtained from the cleric-militant, when he was in their custody.
Since January this year, terrorists belonging to Masood's outfit have carried out 14 major attacks in the state, including the car bomb blast in the state assembly on October 1.
Rediff.com was able to get an exclusive peek at the confessional statements of Masood Azhar, which he had made to the investigators during his long incarceration in a Jammu jail.
According to the confessional statements, Masood Azhar, a seventh standard drop out, joined subversive activities when he came in contact with another Karachi resident, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalili Amir, in 1989.
Masood Azhar's closest associate was Sajjad Afgani, who came to India in January 1993, and did the spade work for Azhar to travel to India on a fake Portuguese passport.
Being literate in Arabic and Urdu (Mazood Azhar did Almina in Arabic from an Arabic School in Karachi) he was entrusted with the task of bringing out a magazine called Sadai Mujahid for Khalili, said police sources.
By his own admission to the police, Masood Azhar went to Yavar training camp in Afghanistan and gained expertise in operating AK-47 rifles.
He was also instrumental in bringing smaller terrorist outfits under one umbrella, and helped Khalili in launching Harkat-ul-Ansar, a terrorist outfit now banned by the United State of America.
Within a short period of time he rose within the ranks of Harkat, and started visiting various African, Asian and European countries to collect money for jihad.
His confessional statement mentions Zambia, United Kingdom and Bangladesh.
He said that on each trip he would collect anything between Rs 2 million to 2.5 million Pakistani rupees.
He hit pay dirt in October 1992, when he visited Birmingham, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and several other places in United Kingdom, and collected huge sums of money for fighting jihad in Kashmir.
In UK, he came in contact with a person named Ismail, who in turn introduced him to a travel agent, Mohammad Hafiz.
Hafiz was the one who provided Azhar with a Portuguese passport -- in the name of Adam Issa -- which he used to enter India.
After he got the passport, he applied for a visa to visit India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
On January 29, 1994, Masood Azhar landed in Delhi.
Interestingly, when he was at the immigration counter, an officer told Azhar that he did not look like a Portuguese.
"I told him that I am a Gujarati, and this was enough to convince the officer, who stamped my passport to let me in," Azhar has said in his statement.
Once out of the Indira Gandhi International Airport, he took a taxi and asked the driver to take him to 'best hotel' in town.
The driver took him to Ashoka Hotel.
Within hours of checking into the hotel, he decided to visit Deoband, Saharanpur and several other places in Uttar Pradesh.
The same day, he hired a taxi and went to Deoband.
On January 31, he came back to Delhi, and this time checked into Janpath Hotel.
After a short stay in Delhi, he decided to visit Lucknow. Taking all precautions not to be recognised, he took a night bus.
He came back to Delhi on February 7, again by a night bus, and stayed in Shah Mahal Hotel in Karol Bagh.
On February 9, he travelled to Srinagar by an Indian Airlines plane, and stayed in a Madarsa in Lal Bazar.
There he met trusted his lieutenant Sajjad Afgani, who was accompanied by Amjad Bilal, deputy chief commander of Harkat-ul-Ansar.
By then the Jammu and Kashmir police had got a whiff about his arrival, and within a fortnight he was arrested.
Keeping his dangerous profile in mind, he was transferred to high-security Kot Balwal jail in Jammu in November 1994.
He tried to escape from the jail by digging a tunnel, but before he could escape the tunnel was detected.
He was facing several cases under TADA, when the government of India had to release him in exchange for passengers of IC 814 in December 1999.
According to intelligence officials, Maulana Masood Azhar met Osama bin Laden after his release and the Saudi terrorist had given him huge sums of money to launch his own outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad.
"We have confirmed information that Saudi terrorist Osama gave him large sums of money. I cannot say the amount. But it was substantial. The two have the same common goal to strike against the American interests world over," said a top official of Jammu and Kashmir police.
The state police has booked Masood Azhar as a key conspirator in the car bomb blast case of October 1.
"It would help us a great deal in banning his outfit. As of now over 800 terrorists are members of his organisation, and they all specialise in suicide attacks," A K Suri, the director general of Jammu and Kashmir police told rediff.com.
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