Alleged Crime Boss Charged in India

Alleged Crime Boss Charged in India

by Ashok Sharma
The Associated Press
February 10, 2002

Federal investigators on Sunday charged an alleged crime boss linked to an attack on a U.S. cultural center with sending explosives and weapons from Pakistan to India for an Islamic holy war.

Indian police allege Aftab Ansari, also known as Farhan Malik, has close ties to Pakistani militants, including Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is believed to be behind the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Authorities did not suggest Ansari was involved in Pearl's kidnapping. Ansari was extradited Saturday to India from the Gulf emirate of Dubai and was immediately arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Indian equivalent of the FBI.

On Sunday, Ansari, 32, appeared in the court of Magistrate Kamimi Lau, who handed him to CBI custody until Feb. 16 for investigation. State prosecutors said that Ansari, an Indian citizen, and three others were charged with smuggling arms and explosives. They could face up to seven years in prison.

Indian authorities seized a large quantity of arms, ammunition and explosives last year in Gujarat state. Questioning of four suspects established that the weapons were sent by Ansari from neighboring Pakistan, a CBI statement said.

Ansari will be taken to Gujarat to corroborate those reports, then officials plan to take him to Calcutta in West Bengal state, where he is suspected of planning a drive-by shooting attack on a U.S. government cultural center last month that killed five policemen, CBI officials said.

Acting on a tip from India, police in Dubai arrested Ansari last month with a Pakistani passport as he was boarding a flight to Islamabad. Since fleeing India in 2000, he has been living in Dubai or Pakistan, the CBI said.

Police say Ansari worked with Islamic militant groups backed by Pakistan's spy agency in the attack on the U.S. center. Pakistan has denied any role in the attack.

Ansari was imprisoned in India during the 1990s for crimes that included kidnapping. But the CBI on Saturday said he was now closely linked to Islamic militants, including Saeed. Pakistani officials have said Saeed is the main suspect in the abduction of Pearl last month in Pakistan.

Ansari jumped bail after his release in 2000 from prison and fled to Pakistan, and then to Dubai with Saeed's assistance, the CBI said.

India accuses Pakistan - its longtime rival - of shielding suspected terrorists who have carried out attacks in India, a claim Pakistan denies.

Interpol, the international police agency, issued an alert for Ansari after India provided a Dubai telephone number from which Indian police said Ansari called Calcutta officials to claim responsibility for the American center attack.

Indian Interior Ministry officials say Ansari runs a cell of gunmen in the eastern state of Bihar in conjunction with Harkat-ul Jehad-e-Islami and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba - two Islamic militant groups based in Pakistan.

Police say Ansari had called the Calcutta police after the attack on the American center and said it was in retaliation for the October slaying of the Harkat leader, Hafiz Khan, in a shootout with Indian police.

The group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba has been outlawed by Pakistan and declared a terrorist group by the United States. It is one of nearly a dozen Pakistan-based groups waging a 12-year insurgency against India's rule over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided with Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since gaining independence in 1947.

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