NEW DELHI: Indian Mujahideen wanted to make international headlines through an audacious plan to kidnap Jews in India and use them to bargain for the release of a Pakistani woman serving an 86-year prison sentence in the US for her involvement in the 9/11 plot, the interrogation of IM co-founder Yasin Bhatkal has revealed.

Yasin, caught from Nepal in August this year, has told National Investigation Agency investigators that while he was in that country, IM founder leader Riyaz Bhatkal had suggested the plan which was aimed at securing the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui.

Siddiqui, 41, a US-trained neuroscientist, was convicted as an al-Qaida courier and financier following disclosures by 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Muhammad.

The plan did not materialize, Yasin is believed to have told interrogators without giving a reason why. Sources said Riyaz Bhatkal, who fled to Pakistan, had called up Yasin to discuss the plan sometime in July-August, a few days before the latter's arrest.

Agencies are taking Yasin's claims seriously because Indian Mujahideen had earlier planned attacks on Chabbad houses at various places in India. Intelligence agencies have got in touch with the FBI and activities of IM operatives are being tracked and Jewish establishments put on watch, a source said.

"Even though Yasin claims that the plan fell through, we can't trust him because there is a possibility that Riyaz would use other operatives for the job," he said.

Details about the plan emerged while Yasin was telling interrogators about his stay in Nepal, where he was hiding for over a year. Yasin used different cyber cafes in Nepal to get in touch with Riyaz, Iqbal Bhatkal and other IM operatives.

Aafia Siddiqui, is currently lodged at Carswell prison in the US, where she is famously known as 'prisoner number 650'. Pakistan had opposed her conviction and has been demanding her release.

Siddiqui studied neuroscience in the US, obtaining a PhD in 2001 from Brandeis University. She returned to Pakistan in 2002 before disappearing with her three young children in March 2003, shortly after the arrest in Pakistan of her second husband's uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged chief planner of the 9/11 attacks. Muhammad later named her after which she was listed in FBI's list of terror suspects. In May 2004, she was named as one of US's seven most wanted terrorists.

She was reportedly arrested in July 2008 in Ghazni, Afghanistan, allegedly with notes for making bombs and containers of sodium cyanide. Siddiqui was indicted in a New York federal district court in September 2008 on charges of attempted murder and assault. She was tried and convicted in early 2010.