New Delhi: A mosque with its entry gate inside Iran in the Rituk border area and a backdoor exit that opens up in Pakistani territory had been used by at least three Indian jihadis to enter Pakistan from Iran.
Counter-terror agencies now suspect that this may be the traditional route through which many more Indian jihadis may have entered Pakistan to enlist in the terror camps in the restive FATA region.
The revelations have come from the confessions of Mohammad Asif, the arrested India-head of al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). Asif has told his interrogators that he, along with two associates Mohammad Sharjeel Akhtar and Mohammad Rehan—had used this route.
An associate told the trio to go past the Iranian border check-post on the pretext of visiting the mosque which was located inside Iran but after the border post. “The backside of the mosque opened inside Pakistan,” Asif has said.
After getting a three-month Iranian visa on the pretext of pilgrimage to pay ‘ziyarat’ (obeisance) at the tomb of the Iranian leader Ayotollah Khomenei, the trio was taken from Teheran airport by bus to Zahedan and then to another place called Saravan and thence to the Rituk border.
From a bus station in the Pakistan border, the next stop was Quetta, followed by a bus ride to Pishin and then a two-day drive to Ghazni in Afghanistan.
The trio’s next stop was at Azan Warsak, South Wajiristan, Pakistan before reaching Miranshah in North Waziristan on July 22, 2013. During his about eight-month stay in the training camp, Asif met many youth mainly from Karachi but there were quite a few Indians too.
In one instance, Asif came across two young boys who said they were from Maldives, but Asif thought they were concealing their identities as their accents were distinctively from eastern Uttar Pradesh.
While Akhtar and Rehan underwent extensive courses and trainings, Asif was not selected for further training because of his advanced age and instead sent back to India with the mandate of enlisting new recruits for AQIS.
Sharjeel and Rehan along with five Pakistani youth were sent for ‘Askari’ training in the Datta Khel mountains where they had to undergo a month-long training which was divided into three stages.
The first stage was of one week duration and consisted of outdoor activities like exercises and running. The next stage comprised of theoretical lessons and indoor classes like assembling and dismantling of arms like Kalashnikov rifles and pistols while the third stage consisted of weapon firing. After a month would start a few more training programmes including making IEDs, etc.
Asif, 42, and Akhtar are from Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal area—which is under the radar of the security agencies as the newest terror nursery in India on the lines of Bhatkal, while Rehan is a Jamia University pass-out from Delhi.
Asif was arrested on December 14, 2015, by Delhi police when he had come to the national capital from Sambhal to meet newly-motivated youth intending to join AQIS.
On his way back to India, Asif was arrested in April 2014 in Mehrabia, Iran and was in Mehriaj jail for about a month before Iranian authorities decided to push him into Turkey as they did not want Asif to be deported from Iran.
Asif reached India on October 3, 2014 after being deported by the Turkish authorities on visa irregularities.
It is on the basis of Asif’s confessions that the Indian agencies have concluded that the AQIS head Asim Umar is none other Shanul Haque , a resident of Deepa Sarai, Sambhal. Umarhad left India for Pakistan in 1995 and had initially joined the Harkat ul Mujahideen. Presently, he is believed to be staying in hideouts in the mountains of Shaobal, near Datta Khel, North Waziristan, although Pakistan has claimed to have claimed that area back from the jihadi groups.
