Mumbai: Naquee Ahmed, one of the jailed 13/7 blasts accused, who had claimed to be an informer of Delhi police, was in contact with Indian Mujahideen`s (IM) elusive chief operative Yasin Bhatkal through a popular social networking site since 2008, Maharashtra ATS claimed on Sunday.
Naquee, who hails from Darbhanga district of Bihar, was initially arrested on January 10 this year on charges of forgery for allegedly procuring mobile phone SIM cards using fake documents.
According to the Maharashtra ATS, these SIM cards had been used by the IM module that executed the terror strikes at Dadar, Zaveri Bazaar and Opera House on July 13, 2011 leaving 27 dead and 127 injured. Later, Naquee was held in the blasts case, the ATS said.
"Naquee, who claimed to be a police informer and had been helping police solve the 13/7 blasts case, had actually been in touch with Imran, who in reality is Yasin Bhatkal, since 2008 through the Facebook", an ATS official told PTI.
Naquee knew the antecedents of Yasin and he had helped the latter throughout the conspiracy hatched to execute the blasts, the officer claimed.
"Not only Naquee, even Nadeem and Waqas (two other accused) were in touch with each other through the Facebook", the official said, adding that the terror suspects communicated with each other using code language.
"We have taken the printouts of their Facebook accounts to prove their communication with each other since a long time. It is a crucial piece of evidence", the officer added.
However, the officer declined to divulge details when asked if the accused maintained real names or used fictitious names on the site. The officer also parried a question if the terror suspects` Facebook accounts still existed.
PTI
