Mumbai:
A court in Mumbai today granted the Mumbai Crime Branch custody of 26/11 handler Abu Jundal till July 31. The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative will be interrogated about his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case.
Zabiuddin Ansari alias Jundal was flown in to Mumbai from Delhi late on Friday night. He was produced in the court today amid tight security. Nobody was allowed near the courtroom where he appeared. The court premises was heavily guarded - security personnel from the Quick Reaction Team, the Riot Control Police, the State Reserve Police Force and also the Crime Branch and the Mumbai Police's Anti-Terror Squad were present in large numbers. On his way to Mumbai too, he was escorted by a team of six policemen from the ATS.
On Friday, a Delhi court granted the Mumbai Police's ATS Jundal's custody. The 26/11 handler is wanted by the Mumbai Police in connection with the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case, the 26/11 Mumbai mayhem, the 2010 German bakery blast and the Nasik recce. In the court today, Special Public Prosecutor Ujwal Nikam represented the Crime Branch and sought his custody.
Jundal has reportedly told interrogators in Delhi that after 26/11, the LeT had shortlisted the Nashik Police Academy in Maharashtra as a terror target. The academy is a state-level training institution for Maharashtra Police personnel. The plan, he has said, was to emulate the attack on the police training academy in Lahore in 2009 - terrorists entered the school with grenades and rockets; at least 10 people were killed over nearly eight hours as Pakistani officials fought back.
The ATS was seeking Jundal's custody ever since he was nabbed by the Delhi Police. It has been directed by the court to produce him back in Delhi once his investigation is over.
Jundal was in custody of the Delhi Police's special cell since June 21. He was deported from Saudi Arabia to India last month and has been sharing with interrogators details of ISI officers who he says supervised the control room in Karachi from where he along with five other handlers instructed the 10 terrorists on the ground in Mumbai about how to strike.
Earlier, the Mumbai Crime Branch had asked for his custody; sources say they want him to confront Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist caught alive in Mumbai during 26/11, who is kept in a bulletproof cell at Mumbai's Arthur Road jail.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) wanted him too so they could question him about the conspiracy behind 26/11. The Pune Police wants to interrogate him about his alleged link to the 2010 blast at the city's German Bakery in which 17 people died.