D and the AK: Cops solve missing rifle mystery related to 1993 Mumbai blasts case

Mumbai, Oct 17: The AK-56 rifle that was seized from the home of a Dawood Ibrahim aide was part of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts arsenal. The rifle was smuggled into the city along with the explosives that were used in the 1993 blasts, the police have confirmed.

The Thane Crime Branch had seized the rifle along with three magazines from the house of Naeem Fahim Khan at Goregaon in Mumbai's western suburb.

Khan's wife, Yasmeen was arrested in connection with the case. The police have been able to establish the Khan was a Dawood man and was hired by the syndicate in 2015 to carry out the killing of a city based businessman. Khan was arrested in 2016.

Police sources tell OneIndia that the rifle was in Khan's possession for long. He had infant wrapped it in a newspaper that was dated 1997. Following the forensic analysis of the weapon, it has been confirmed that this rifle was part of the consignment that had arrived in Mumbai prior to the 1993 blasts.

Not all arsenal used:

The police say that not all the arsenal had been used in the blasts. Following the blasts, the police had seized 71 AK-56 rifles. However they were unable to recover three rifles. The police now say that the rifle found on Khan was the one of the three missing weapons.

The source also confirmed that the rifles had been hidden in various places and one of them was given to Khan. The FSL report states that the the residue of the fired ammonium nitrate was detected in the barrel washing of the rifle. This meant that the it was fired prior to its receipt at the lab.

Investigations further showed that Khan operated as a fleet cab driver by day. When the police interrogated Yasmeen she said that her husband had delivered guns for the D-syndicate on two occasions. My husband would take me with him in the cab under the pretext of her being a passenger. I along with my husband would then deliver the guns, she also told her interrogators.

D and the AK:

The D-Gang has been using the AKs for long. The AK-47 rifle was used in the JJ Hospital shootout, when members of the D gang killed a man from the rival Arun Gawli faction. Following the 1993 blasts, there has been no trail of any AKs coming into the city and gangsters often used country made pistols.

However in 2006, a Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative, Abu Jundal managed to smuggle in 14 AK-47 rifles and several kilograms of RDX. The investigations revealed that the arsenal was brought in to carry out a wave of terror strikes across the country.

Jundal however fled the country and his name next surfaced during the investigations into the Mumbai 26/11 attack. He was the Hindi tutor for the ten terrorists who struck in the city. Jundal was later on deported to India from Saudi Arabia. He is currently lodged in jail.