'Secret
agencies had cleared bomber': Attempt on Musharraf's
life |
By Ismail Khan
|
|
PESHAWAR,
Dec 28: One of the two suicide bombers, who attacked
President Gen Musharraf's convoy in Rawalpindi
last Thursday, had been cleared of involvement
in anti-state activities by security agencies
in April last year , Security agencies working
on the twin-suicide bombings to eliminate President
Musharraf have |
established
the identity of one of the bombers, Muhammad Jamil.
His identity was established after security
agencies rummaging through the debris and human body
parts recovered his torso and national identity card,
a source told Dawn.
Dawn's investigation revealed that Muhammad
Jameel, 23, was affiliated with the banned Jaish-i-Muhammad,
a militant organization, that had training camps in
Rishkore near Kabul in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan
and was actively involved in the occupied Kashmir.
Jaish-i-Muhammad was launched by Maulana
Masood Azhar in January 2000 when he split up with Harakatul
Mujahideen of Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil. President
Gen Pervez Musharraf had banned five militant groups
including Jaish-i-Muhammad for their involvement in
sectarian violence in a televised address to the nation
on Jan 12.
Masood was one of three people whose
release from Indian prison was demanded by hijackers
of an Indian airliner in 1999. The other two released
by Delhi included Khalid Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar.
Sheikh has already been convicted in the murder case
of Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl.
Investigations revealed that Muhammad
Jameel, resident of Androot, Police Station, Torarh
in Poonch district, Azad Kashmir, had received only
primary level education and was a Hafizul Quran (memorized
the Holy Book by heart).
Fired by fiery speeches by Jihadi leaders,
Jameel went to Jalalabad via Torkham in eastern Nangrahar
province in January 2001 through an Afghan cloth merchant
in AJ&K. Soon afterwards, he moved to Kabul and
lived in Darul Aman area on the outskirts of the Afghan
capital.
Jameel, however, was wounded and captured
when the US-backed Northern Alliance attacked Kabul
later that year. He was shifted to a hospital and remained
under treatment for fifteen days.
The transitional government in Afghanistan
led by President Hamid Karzai handed him over to Pakistani
authorities along with 29 other militants that same
month and they were flown to Peshawar in a military
aircraft. They were re-arrested by the Pakistani authorities
and charged with entering Pakistan without travel documents.
Significantly, though, Jameel was declared
"white" by security agencies when interrogated
by a Joint Interrogation Team in April last year. The
JIT had concluded that the suspect was not involved
in any anti-state activities and since nothing adverse
had been found against him, the JIT had unanimously
declared him "white" implying that his custody
was not required by the agencies.
|