Former IPS officer Rajesh Pandey’s book Antaheen claims terrorist Riyaz Bhatkal was killed in Pakistan by Hindu gangsters

New Delhi – Former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Rajesh Pandey has claimed in his book Antaheen, citing gangster Babloo Srivastava, that Indian Mujahideen terrorist Riyaz Bhatkal was killed in Pakistan. Babloo claims that the killing was carried out by his own associates.

The book states that when Rajesh Pandey was serving as Inspector General of Police (IGP) in Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh), Babloo was lodged in Bareilly Jail. During an interrogation, Babloo disclosed this information.

Between 2003 and 2008, the Indian Mujahideen carried out a series of bomb blasts across India. Although many terrorists involved in these attacks were arrested, the masterminds behind the bomb blasts, Riyaz Bhatkal and Iqbal Bhatkal, escaped to Pakistan through Nepal. They were also the ones who named the terrorist organisation Indian Mujahideen.

Chhota Rajan had also made the same claim

Before his arrest on 6 November 2015, gangster Chhota Rajan had also claimed that Riyaz Bhatkal had been killed in Pakistan by his associates.

Rajesh Pandey writes in the book that after the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, the underworld split into two factions along Hindu-Muslim lines. While terrorist Dawood Ibrahim was operating from Pakistan under the control of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), members of the rival Hindu faction—Chhota Rajan, Subhash Thakur, Babloo Srivastava and P.P. Pandey alias Bunty Pandey—were imprisoned in India. All of them were convicted in earlier criminal cases and continue to serve life sentences.

Gangsters claimed to have assisted Indian agencies

According to Rajesh Pandey, after Chhota Rajan was brought to Tihar Jail in 2015, the gangsters came into contact with one another while in prison. The others congratulated Babloo Srivastava for wiping out Dawood Ibrahim’s entire network in Nepal single-handedly. (It is said that Babloo Srivastava was also involved in the conspiracy to kill Nepali MP Mirza Dilshad Beg, who was allegedly associated with Dawood Ibrahim.) Babloo told the others that those who had fled to Pakistan with Dawood also needed to be eliminated and that they would have to unite to achieve that objective.

Babloo Srivastava further claimed that after wiping out Dawood’s network in Nepal, he had those who fled to Pakistan killed there as well. According to him, they included Mohammad Shariq alias Chhota Dawood, Sagir Ahmed, Riyaz Bhatkal, Anwar Khan and several other prominent terrorists.

Babloo is quoted in the book as saying: “Even today, Maulana Masood Azhar, Syed Salahuddin, Talha, Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Ameer Sarfraz Tamba, who killed Sarabjit Singh, continue to operate their networks from Pakistan. Until Dawood is eliminated, our revenge will remain incomplete because he has consistently worked against India and caused immense damage to the country at the behest of the ISI. Therefore, we must all unite and assist the Indian agencies.”

According to the book, all the gangsters agreed to this because they had no other option. They had virtually no hope of being released from prison and also wanted better facilities while serving their sentences. The book states that in return for assisting the Indian agencies, they could receive better facilities from the prison administration, including better food, separate barracks, access to television and medical treatment.