Suspect in U.S. Centre Attack Admits To Links with Pakistani Militants

Suspect in U.S. Centre Attack Admits To Links with Pakistani Militants

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
February 11, 2002

Aftab Ansari alias Farhan Malik, the main suspect behind last month's attack on the American Centre in Calcutta, has admitted to links with Pakistani Moslem militant groups, reports said Monday.

The Times of India newspaper said that Ansari, a Dubai-based Indian gangster who was extradited to New Delhi on Saturday, admitted that he had used millions of rupees earned through ransom payments for kidnap victims to establish a terrorist network. The paper said Ansari, who was remanded in custody of the federal police Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for seven days on Sunday, also admitted to financing militants in Pakistan, including Omar Sheikh one of the main suspects in the abduction of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi.

Omar Sheikh was one of the three Moslem militants released by India in return for the release of passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane taken to Afghanistan in 1999.

Officials said Ansari also admitted to forming a countrywide organization of arms and drugs smugglers.

Ansari is also wanted for arms smuggling and abduction in the western state of Gujarat, for procuring a fake passport in eastern Bihar and in an abduction case in West Bengal.

On January 28, police in the eastern state of Jharkhand shot dead two alleged Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) operatives who they claimed took part in the Calcutta attack.

They said that an assault rifle which could have been used in the attack was recovered from the two in a village in Hazaribagh district.

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