Kolkata Police let off IM mastermind: Where's coordination?

, Feb 22: Yasin Bhaktal, one of the country's most-wanted man, was caught by the Special Task Force (STF) in Kolkata in 2008 but was released after spending some months in jail, sources said. His real identity had remained unknown.

Yasin and his brother Riaz co-founded the Indian Mujahideen (IM) reportedly with the help of dreaded Pakistan-backed terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The IM is suspected of having links, direct or indirect, to a series of terror attacks in India in recent times, including the latest explosions in Hydereabad which killed 16 people besides injuring several others.

Yasin was arrested five years ago on a tip-off from the Intelligence Bureau in connection to a fake currency-notes case and the sleuths found a voter identity card from him which had an assumed name with an address in Bihar.

When Kolkata Police verified with Bihar officials, the name and address were said to be genuine. It's likely that Yasin had stolen the identity of someone else. Yasin was released on bail after spending some months in Alipore Jail. It was only two years after that IM terrorists arrested by the same STF revealed that their leader had been arrested and let off by the authorities.

The police were left kicking themselves after a blast in a German bakery in Pune killed 17 people on February 13, 2010. Authorities found from the footage that it was Yasin himself who had planted a bomb in the popular eatery. And it was hardly a month since he was released from the Kolkata prison.

Further confirmation of the Kolkata Police's mistake was revealed by IM operative Mohammed Salman during his quizzing in the custody of Delhi Police. Yasin had allegedly conspired the blast outside the Delhi High Court in September 2011 in which 12 people were killed.

OneIndia News