Ali’s father UmardeenA shoe factory worker in Lahore had barely left anything behind. The family was pleasantly surprised to receive financial assistance from an unknown institution. For the next two years, he continued to receive money regularly, even as Ali and his brothers, Farooq and Salim, worked to get things back on track.
During this time Ali was being inspired and radicalized to join jihad and was eventually persuaded to work for the ISI. In late 2003, Ali was taken to a camp and trained in weapons and literature under his handler, Kod-Nasir. The boy was finally “ready” in the spring of 2004, after which he was sent to Dhaka along with other recruits.
According to Delhi PoliceAli was first kept in Mirpur and then smuggled into India via Siliguri in West Bengal. He was not carrying any weapons or explosives and was instructed to lie down. He stayed in Kolkata for a few weeks, after which he left Ajmer. During interrogation he revealed that he was briefed about various Indian cities, routes and spy techniques to facilitate his stay.
“In Ajmer, Ali befriended a cleric at a local mosque and lived there for two years. In 2006, he accompanied the cleric to Delhi and started tilawat (prayer work) in factories in the Walled City. He met other relatives of the Maulvi and won their trust. He then started receiving money from his ISI handler Nasir by Western Union money transfer through the IDs of the relatives of the cleric,” said DCP (Special Cell) Pramod Kushwaha.
In North Delhi, he got his identity cards made with the help of the owner of his rented room. “He stayed there for six months. My father got his Aadhaar card made for the document. We lost contact with him after he left. We will cooperate with the police if need be,” said Uzaib, son of Ali’s former landlord.
The neighbors did not seem to remember to notice any unusual activity. “He lived 15 years back in the street number 4 of Aaram Park. He said that he works at a shop in Laxmi Nagar. He had rented the room for about seven months. He went to work in the morning and returned late,” said a local resident.
In 2007, Ali moved to Ghaziabad, where he married a woman named Badurnisa, who lived in a JJ cluster in Vaishali. However, this marriage was a sham as Ali wanted to get a ration card made using the marriage documents. He left the woman in 4-5 months and went to Katihar in Bihar. There he got a residence certificate made by a village headman. Using these documents, he got the passport.
During interrogation by a team led by ACP Lalit Mohan Negi and Hriday Bhushan, Ali revealed that he had gone to Jammu and Kashmir around 2009 on the instructions of his handler.
Intelligence sources said Ali remained in the Valley for the next eight years, during which he was used for a variety of tasks, including planting IEDs and gunning for terror operatives. A source said they are investigating a tip-off that suggests Ali was involved in incidents where soldiers were brutally tortured before being killed. He is being questioned in this regard.
Over the years, Ali was in regular contact with his handlers through various communication channels, but conversations about assignments were mainly through email drafts. Of late, he was using Telegram to communicate with arms suppliers, which was intercepted by the police.
.