Calcutta Attack Linked with Taliban and Pakistan's ISI: Report

Agence France Presse
January 27, 2002



The mastermind of last week's attack on the American Centre in Indian city of Calcutta has close links with the Taliban and Pakistan's secret service, a newspaper report claimed Sunday.

The Hindustan Times said Omar Sheikh, one of three people released by India in return for pasengers of an Indian Airlines plane hijacked in 1999 from Kathmandu and taken to Kandahar, is said to be behind the Calcutta attack that left four policemen dead and 20 others injured.

Quoting sources, the report says that Sheikh was the brain behind the attack and that he gave the idea of attacking the American facility to Farhan Malik -- alias Aftab Ansari -- a Dubai-based mafia don who claimed responsibility for the incident. Farhan is also alleged to have close links to Pakistani secret service Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, a Pakistan-based militant outfit fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

So far, more than 70 people have been picked up for questioning in the wake of the attack in which unidentified gunmen rode up to the Center on a motorbike and opened fire on several dozen police guards changing duty.

According to the report, Sheikh, a British national who is currently said to be lodged in an ISI guesthouse in Islamabad, has been in close touch with Malik.

"In August 2001, Malik was even taken to Islamabad from Dubai where he met Sheikh who asked him for logistical support for operations from Bangladesh," the report said.

Sheikh was also involved in the kidnapping of three British and one American national in New Delhi in October 1994. He was arrested when the hideout where the hostages were kept was busted by the police.

Five years later, in December 1999, Sheikh and two others were released by the Indian government in exchange for passengers of the Indian Airlines plane at Kandahar.

The then Taliban government refused to arrest Sheikh, who disappeared into Afghanistan and later resurfaced in Pakistan.


Copyright 2002 Agence France Presse

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