A former convict in a 2012 terror conspiracy case has been arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) over the March 1 Rameshwaram Cafe blast in Bengaluru.
The agency said this person acted as the link between a key suspect arrested for the blast and a handler suspected to be based abroad.
The NIA identified the suspect held Friday as Hubbali resident Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, 35, who was released from prison in 2017 after serving five years for his involvement in a Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked terror conspiracy detected in Bengaluru in 2012.
Advertisem*nt
Mirza, a computer applications graduate employed with a private firm, is the fifth person named by the NIA over the blast that injured nine people.
The agency arrested the suspected bomb planter — 30-year-old Mussavir Hussain Shazib — and the alleged main conspirator — Abdul Matheen Taha, 30 — in West Bengal on April 12.
Also Read | How SIM card bought with fake ID helped crack Bengaluru cafe blast case
Before that, the NIA arrested two people — Maaz Muneer Ahmed, 25, an undertrial prisoner at the Bengaluru central jail, and Muzammil Sharief, 30, an employee of a restaurant in Bengaluru — saying they provided logistics support to the main conspirators.
On Friday, the NIA said the fifth accused, Mirza, “befriended and introduced” Taha to an online handler “suspected to be abroad” in 2018, shortly after his release from prison.
Advertisem*nt
“Mirza had further provided an e-mail ID for encrypted communication between the handler and Abdul Matheen Taha…” the NIA said.
“Further investigations into the role of handler and larger conspiracy behind the blast, which left several injured and caused extensive damage to property are continuing,” the NIA said.
Sources said that Mirza connected Taha to a handler — suspected to be a missing accused from the 2012 case — after he came into contact with Taha through a roommate in Bengaluru.
On May 21, the NIA had conducted searches at locations connected to 11 people in four states to “uncover the entire conspiracy behind the Rameshwaram Café Blast Case and to identify the other conspirators involved in handling the accused from abroad.”
Advertisem*nt
The searches were carried out in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh at the premises linked with 11 suspects including “individuals convicted in the 2012 LeT Conspiracy case of Bengaluru and Hubli Districts” the NIA said on May 21.
The NIA identified the suspect held Friday as Hubbali resident Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, 35, who was released from prison in 2017 after serving five years for his involvement in a Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked terror conspiracy (Express Photo by Jithendra M)
The premises searched by the NIA included the home of Shoaib Mirza, the son of a retired railway employee, in Hubbali.
The NIA probe in The Rameshwaram Cafe blast case has revealed that a person who identified himself as “Bhai” and “Colonel” in encrypted chats was handling Taha and others linked to a Thirthahalli module owing allegiance to Islamic State.
Among the missing persons from the 2012 LeT conspiracy case in Bengaluru is Mohammed Shahid Faisal alias Ustad, 38, an engineer from Bengaluru and Farhatullah Ghori, 57, the father-in-law of Shahid Faisal.
Advertisem*nt
Earlier in April, soon after the arrest of the two alleged perpetrators of the Rameshwaram Cafe blast in West Bengal, agencies had quizzed Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, 35, one of the accused in the 2012 LeT conspiracy case in his home town of Hubli. He was later released.
Sources said the searches were conducted earlier this week to gather information on the alleged handlers of the perpetrators of the Rameshwaram Cafe blast since the NIA probe revealed some linkages between the accused from the 2012 LeT conspiracy case and the perpetrators of the 2024 cafe blast case.
Also Read | Bengaluru cafe blast suspect used fake ID credentials for Chennai stay, probe reveals
EXPLAINED: What’s the 2012 LeT conspiracy case in Bengaluru?
A total of 13 persons served five year jail terms in the LeT conspiracy case of 2012 after they pleaded guilty to the charges brought against them by the NIA.
In 2012, intelligence agencies and police reportedly picked up the trail of an alleged LeT recruitment plot after two youths Dr Zafar Iqbal Sholapur and Abdul Hakeem Jamadar from Hubli in Karnataka, travelled to Pakistan via Iran in December 2011 to allegedly join the Taliban in Afghanistan. Monitoring of their activities after their return to India reportedly revealed they were in touch with LeT linked Indian terror fugitives living in Saudi Arabia.
Advertisem*nt
Between August 29 and September 2, 2012, the Bengaluru police arrested 13 youths from Bengaluru, Hubli, Nanded and Hyderabad for allegedly being in touch with a group of nine Indian-origin terror fugitives based in Saudi Arabia, and linked to Pakistan’s LeT.
The searches were carried out in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh at the premises linked with 11 suspects including “individuals convicted in the 2012 LeT Conspiracy case of Bengaluru and Hubli Districts (PTI)
The Bengaluru police accused the 13 of plotting the killing of right-wing Hindu leaders in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The specific case against the youths was that two of them, Shoaib Ahmed Mirza and Abdul Hakeem Jamadar, plotted to kill a right-wing columnist in a Kannada newspaper, Pratap Simha, who later went on to become a BJP MP in 2014.
On September 15, 2016 a special terrorism court convicted the 13 arrested youths on all the charges against them and sentenced them to five years in prison after the youths pleaded guilty. They were released in 2017 on completion of five years in prison.
The case is not entirely closed yet since a separate chargesheet has been filed by the NIA against the persons who are absconding in the case.
