CRACKING DOWN: Bhattacharya tried talking tough on the growth of madarsas

An unwelcome surprise in the unearthing of Aftab Ansari's diabolical network is Kolkata's premier status. The city has its criminal underbelly mostly in the Muslim-dominated pockets-like the port area of Kidderpore or the eastern suburbs of Tangra and Tiljala. Most of the city's big-ticket gangsters too have been Muslim-from Akbar the "satta" king in the 1980s to gangland boss Rashid later. Still, nobody suspected Kolkata of harbouring an army of educated young men committed to Islamic fundamentalism. At least not until investigation began into the abduction of Khadim Shoes' owner Partha Roy Burman last year and on the attack on the usis on January 22.

Ansari's catchment area was in the narrow lanes of the Kolkata's Muslim districts, where the recruits believed that by supporting "Bade Bhai", or Ansari, they were helping the "cause". Only Asif Reza Khan, Ansari's trusted assistant who was killed in Rajkot last year, had an idea of the gang operating in the twilight zone between crime and ideology. But barring Khan, the men who joined Ansari's terror gang have no footprint on police records. Soumen Mitra, deputy commissioner in the detective department of the Kolkata Police, says the youngsters involved in the usis case are "like boys next door".

THE SEMINARY: Beniapukur High madarsa

Typical of these boys is Jamaluddin Nasir, Khan's classmate at Beniapukur High madarsa on Anjuman Road. Nasir's father is still a teacher at the school. Khan and Nasir parted ways after completing school in 1987 and teamed up again in 1999. Nasir bribed officials in his native Biharsharif to facilitate a passport for Ansari in the name of Farhan Mallick. He booked houses for the gang in Hazaribagh and Kolkata. He reportedly
sat in a nearby car as his colleagues fired upon the policemen in front of the American Center. The Kolkata Police got the first hint that Ansari had been picked up by the authorities in Dubai from a check on e-mails received by Nasir, one of which said that "Bade Bhai" had been grounded ("baitha diya") by "mama log" (code for the police).

There are many other youngsters like Nasir. Like Khurram, Khan's neighbour in the Beniapukur area, Khan's childhood friend Yunus (alias Faiyaz) and a mysterious Niyaz who allegedly spent some time with Ansari in his den in Kathmandu, Nepal. The names of some of them surfaced in the Burman probe or, in the usis case, as "sleepers" who had suddenly been activated.

It appears that the Muslims joining the extremist ranks in Kolkata are Urdu-speaking Biharis settled in the city for decades. Unlike Khan, the "Beniapukur lads" had a skimpy knowledge of India but they were passionate about their community. When Khan inducted in 1999, the embers of the Babri event might have died down. But new sparks were flying after organisations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed had been formed. "I did not have to call the boys," Khan reportedly told his interrogators from the cid. "They came to me."

After the USIS attack, state Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya showed rare candour in promptly naming the ISI as the culprit and pointing fingers at unauthorised madarsas. But the CPI (M) chose to tread soft ground. In fact, the party denied that the remarks on madarsas were ever made, a reason why perpetrators of Islamic terrorism continue to run their terror establishments peacefully in Beniapukur bylanes.