Sixteen years after the German Bakery bomb blast in Pune, the trial against alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) terror operative Mohammed Ahmed Zarar Siddibappa alias Yasin Bhatkal (43), one of the key accused in this case, is still on before a special court in Pune.
As per the confession statement, Yasin hails from Bhatkal in Karnataka. His father, while doing garments and shoes business in Dubai, visited Bhatkal once in three months.
It is stated that Yasin, religious since childhood, failed in SSCL (Class 10 board exams). Initially, he started a business of “garments (Lungi)” in Mumbai in 2001, but within four months, shifted to Bhatkal, where he sold perfumes for about three years.
Some college students like Fasih Mahmood (who later allegedly became an IM operative) often visited Yasin’s perfume shop. Lectures and discussions on jihad and communal violence, were held at the shop, police said.
Training in Pakistan, joining ‘Usaba’
Between 2004 and 2006, Yasin went to Dubai for a “job in construction” and a business in sports goods. As per Yasin’s confession, around 2004, he met IM founders Riyaz Bhatkal and Iqbal Bhatkal in Mumbai. Yasin did “Jadi Bhooti” business with Bhatkal brothers. Yasin stated how he once admonished Iqbal for buying a motorcycle on a bank loan, as it was against Islam.
As per Riyaz’s instructions, Yasin went to Pakistan in December 2005 for a training of about 50 days in firearms and explosives like TNT (Trinitrotoluene) and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). Then he went to Dubai, where he started a “personality training educational institute”, it is stated.
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Investigators believe that IM was founded around this period. About his association with IM, Yasin stated that he joined an “Usaba”, headed by Iqbal Bhatkal. “Usaba means a group of men who are more than 11 and less than 40… the said Usaba (congregation) is an Arabic word and established in 2005. The main object of Usaba is to collect the persons having the same mentality and dedication to do something.” he stated.
Terror attacks in India
Yasin returned to India from Dubai in 2007. He stayed at a farmhouse in Koppa in Karnataka for a year, when Riyaz asked him to experiment with a “bomb”.
In his confession, Yasin stated how during March 2008, he prepared “Claymore IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) getting inspired by a Hollywood movie. Yasin also stated how the IM members took a house on rent in Pune, kept changing their locations, while IEDs prepared by him were used for various terror attacks in the country, before his arrest from the India- Nepal border in Bihar, on August 28, 2013
Previously, the Kolkata police had arrested Yasin in December 2009 in an arms dealing case. Yasin stated that after coming out of jail, he along with Qateel Siddiqui and others wanted to take revenge. “Accordingly we blasted German Bakery, Pune on 31.2.2010,” he stated.
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The Maharashtra ATS arrested Yasin in German Bakery case on March 14, 2014 and filed a chargesheet against him in August same year. Investigators believe that Yasin is visible in the CCTV footage of the blast day obtained from the German bakery premises during the probe. The trial against Yasin is on before a special court in Pune court.
A special NIA court awarded death sentence to Yasin, along with IM member Ajaz Shaikh, a BPO staffer from Pune, for Hyderabad twin blasts on February 21, 2013. The court order stated that Ajaz had allegedly delivered the explosives for bombing the German Bakery to Yasin. But the ATS probe made no mention of Ajaz.
A Delhi police probe into the arrest of alleged IM operative Qateel Siddiqui in November 2011, revealed he conducted a recce of the German Bakery along with Yasin. The ATS had later arrested Siddiqui for his alleged plan to bomb the Dagdusheth Ganpati temple on February 13, 2010, same day when German Bakery was attacked. However, Siddqui was murdered by Pune gangster Sharad Mohol at the Yerwada jail in June 2012. Mohol was shot dead by a gang member in January 2024.
The ATS probe
The ATS had filed a charge sheet against seven persons – Riyaz Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal, Yasin Bhatkal, Mohsin Choudhari of IM and alleged Lashkar E Taiba (LeT) operatives Himayat Baig. Fayyaz Kagzi, Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal of Beed district, in German Bakery case.
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On April 18, 2013, a Pune court granted death penalty to Baig, who was arrested by the ATS in September 2010. In May 2016, the Bombay High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. But, Yasin’s confession says nothing about Baig.
Jundal, alleged to be involved in 26/11 Mumbai attack, was deported from Saudi Arabia to India on June 25, 2012. He has not yet been arrested in the German Bakery case. Riyaz, Iqbal and Mohsin, a Pune resident, are absconding. Fayyaz Kagzi is known to have blown himself up outside the US consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on July 4, 2016.
