Mumbai: A local court on Tuesday extended till
September 23 police custody of Asrar Ahmed Abdul Hamid Tailor,
suspected member of Indian Mujahideen (IM), arrested in a fake
currency case, after ATS said it wanted to probe his alleged
terror links.
The investigating agency said it needed to interrogate
Tailor to find out whether money recovered from him was meant
for terror attacks. The ATS had seized 30 fake currency notes
of Rs 1000 denomination from him when he was arrested.
The ATS today produced Tailor, a computer trainer, before
the Mazgaon Magistrate M P Bage, who remanded him in police
custody till September 23.
Earlier, Tailor's companion Haroon Rashid Abdul Hamid
Naik, also a suspected member of IM, was remanded in judicial
custody by the court in the same case.
The duo have also been questioned for their suspected
involvement in the serial blasts that had ripped through
Dadar, Zaveri Bazaar and Opera House localities of the city on
July 13, killing 26 people.
According to the agency, Tailor had confessed to his
involvement in distribution of the fake currency notes along
with Haroon, to whom he had imparted computer training.
Haroon had also allegedly sent Tailor to Pakistan for
terror training in 2000.
The investigating agency told the court that besides
Haroon, there were many others, who had been sent to Pakistan
for terror training and it wanted to find out from Tailor
about them.
Seeking Tailor's custody, ATS said it had recovered
provocative literature meant to incite communal passions and
indoctrinate youths.
ATS further said it needed Tailor's custody to find
out whether he had more such books with him.
Countering the ATS' claim, Tailor's lawyer Sharif
Shaikh submitted that the accused had been called by ATS after
the July 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts and was detained for
several days but nothing emerged out of the investigation.
He further said that in the recent fake currency case,
section 15 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA)
was wrongly applied.
UAPA is generally invoked in terror attack cases and
fake currency seizure is not such a case, Shaikh argued.
Meanwhile, family members of Tailor yesterday met
Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan claiming that they feared
that he might be falsely implicated in a serious case.
Tailor's father-in-law Mahmood told reporters that he
had submitted a representation to Chavan who has assured that
he would not be falsely implicated in any case.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 18:42