By DUNSTAN McNICHOL, ROBERT RUDOLPH AND JOHN P. MARTIN
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

One of the three Newark newsstand workers jailed in the investigation of the Sept. 11 terror attacks claims in a letter to his mother in India that he is innocent, but "helpless" and needs an attorney.

"Everything will be fine again," Ayub Ali Khan wrote in the letter that begins "Dear mother" and was reprinted Sunday in the Times of India newspaper. "Why should we be scared when we have done nothing wrong?"

Khan asked his family to pray for him and to write him letters at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Brooklyn, where he said he and Muhammed Jaweed Azmath have been detained for weeks. "What has happened was Allah's will," he wrote. "We are helpless. We don't even have access to a telephone."

The two men, who until September worked at a newsstand at Newark Penn Station, were arrested Sept. 12 on suspicion of drug charges on a train in Fort Worth, Texas.

Officers found boxcutters, hair dye and nearly $6,000 on the men. Azmath and Khan had boarded the train after their San Antonio-bound flight from Newark was grounded in St. Louis on Sept. 11.

Agents raided their Jersey City apartment and later charged a third roommate, Muhammad Aslam Pervez, with lying to investigators about more than $100,000 in deposits and withdrawals from his personal bank account.

In his letter, written in late October, Khan says he was arrested after "some persons complained to the authorities that our visas expired." Khan concedes his visa had lapsed, asks for forgiveness and says he doesn't "know why Allah has put me to this test."

He also wrote that he needs an attorney. "Try to contact people known to us in America and ask them to help us," he wrote. Khan signs the letter "Syed Gul Mohammed Shah," which Indian police say is his real name.

FBI officials have refused to discuss the status of the Jersey City detainees and would not comment yesterday on the letter.

FBI spokeswoman Sandra Carroll said the bureau is still awaiting results of anthrax tests on items removed from the pair's Tonnele Avenue apartment. Officials are also awaiting results from anthrax tests on two Trenton-area apartments that agents searched last week.

One of the men they arrested, Asif Khan, lived in the same Hamilton Township complex where Pervez used to live, but authorities have said there is no apparent link between the Jersey City men and the activity in Trenton.

Asif Khan's attorney said yesterday that the FBI subjected his client to a lie detector test, interrogated him for hours and initially refused to let Khan call his lawyer. The attorney, Vinaya Saigwani, said agents questioned her client, a Pakistani, about anthrax and the Taliban, the ruling party of Afghanistan. She said he could be released after an immigration court hearing.

"They questioned him three times and they found nothing wrong with him," Saigwani said. "He doesn't even know how to pronounce anthrax ."

Carroll, the FBI spokeswoman, said all detainees are typically afforded the right to call an attorney, but she could not say if Asif Khan had that opportunity.

In other developments yesterday:

The Justice Department charged a Chicago man who tried to board a jetliner on Saturday with knives, Mace and a stun-gun. Property records suggested that the man, Subash Gurung, might have lived in the same Chicago apartment building where Ayub Ali Khan once lived, but officials said such reports were inaccurate.

"There is no connection between Gurung and anything related to Sept. 11 that we know of now," said Ross Rice, a spokesman for the FBI's Chicago office.

Investigators in Newark said their arrest of a Saudi citizen for accepting bribes to arrange U.S. visas had no apparent connection to the hijacking probe. Abdullah Noman, a Saudi citizen employed by the U.S. Commerce Department at the American Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was arrested in Las Vegas last week by FBI agents from Newark.

A complaint filed in federal court in Newark alleges an informant paid Noman approximately 12,000 Saudi Riyals - about $3,178 - in August for his help in obtaining an American Visa under false pretenses.

Etc. BOX: "What has happened was Allah's will. We are helpless. We don't even have access to a telephone."AYUB ALI KHAN, IN A LETTER TO HIS MOTHER

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