‘Who was to assist you in carrying out the blasts? Who sent you the explosives? Forensic tests have found traces of explosives in your pick-up van, so there is no point in denying anything,’ Shekhar said.

‘I acted alone. I don’t have the explosives yet. I would have rigged the manholes next week on getting the contract,’ said Salim.

Shekhar asked the guards to take Salim away. He told them to serve him tea and give him a single cigarette. Shekhar had an urge to smoke and was about to walk out of the room when Salim stopped him.

‘Sir?’ Salim said.

‘Yes?’

‘You are a God-fearing man; your family must be waiting for you at home. But you waste your time here, with me! Your children, your wife need you there. What do you want? The explosives? Send a team to Techpoint, an electrical appliances shop at Toli Chowki. Check out its shutters.’

Shekhar was stunned. He looked at Salim for a few moments, then asked the guards to take him out of the room.

Shekhar sent a team to the shop in Hyderabad the next morning. From inside the shutter’s cavity, they recovered three kilos of a soap-like black substance that seemed to be RDX, thirteen detonators, six cheap phones, seven pre-paid SIM cards and an AK-47. Salim wasn’t bluffing, for a change. Shekhar wondered about the reason behind Salim’s generosity. In the meantime, Anvay and his team had picked up Moosa and brought him to the CTC office. A little ‘treatment’ there straightened him out. Moosa wanted to talk.

‘I know Salim as a Kashmiri mujahideen who is here in exile. I help him with money if he needs it for the family, nothing more,’ Moosa told Shekhar.

‘You are going to jail for harbouring a terrorist. How do you propose to save yourself?’ Shekhar asked.

‘Sir, I am not involved, I am a law-abiding citizen. Keep this to yourself, but Salim has stationed a few young men at his poultry farm on the city’s outskirts,’ Moosa whispered.

‘I hope for your sake your information is correct,’ Shekhar said. ‘Go now, you will be called again for your statement. Be ready; don’t leave the city without seeking my permission. Here, write down the poultry farm’s address.’

A raid at the poultry farm, which Salim ran unknown to his family, yielded 143 chickens, 380 eggs and two young men, Akmal Abbas and Jehangir Khan. Abbas and Khan were interrogated for three hours by the CTC. The realization that their ‘commander’, Salim, was already in CTC’s custody and talking about their involvement in the terror conspiracy convinced them to cooperate with their interrogators. They accepted that they were Pakistanis and members of the LeT. They confessed to being part of Salim’s blast conspiracy.