Bengaluru terror attack foiled: 5 suspects radicalised by LeT operative arrested

He added that the charges under the “stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act” or UAPA were slapped on them.

The police seized seven country-made pistols, 45 live cartridges, walkie-talkies sets, a few daggers, 12 mobile phones, several SIM cards, and incriminating documents from the five terror suspects.

Explosive accessories were also retrieved from their possession. The police commissioner also confirmed that the arrested had received funding to carry out their attack.

Mangaluru blast: A case of terrorist attack using forged identity?

The arrested

The five arrested have been identified as Syed Suhel, Umar, Janid, Mudasir and Faisal Zahid. All of them were residents of Kanakanagar in Sultanpalya near RT Nagar.

Dayananda said that one of the prime accused in the case was absconding, and was believed to have escaped to a foreign country.

The prime accused was one among those who were arrested in a kidnap-and-murder case that took place in 2017 and was in prison for 18 months before being released on bail.

Then he came in contact with Thadiyantevide Nazir, one of the prime accused in the 2008 Bengaluru serial blasts case, CCB sources said.

According to the CCB sources, the terror suspects were in touch with not just Nazir and also another accused Junaid, who managed to escape and who is now living abroad.

It was T Nazir who allegedly radicalised these five suspects to carry out destructive activities in Bengaluru.

However, it was accomplice Junaid, who is at large in a foreign country, who provided them with all kinds of assistance with weapons and other equipment. He had given them the directions to carry out their activities in the city, CCB sources said.

Based on the inputs from the central agencies, the CCB officials kept these five suspects on their radar and were tracking their movements and activities, said Joint Commissioner of Police SD Sharanappa.

These suspects have been accused of murder, robbery, kidnap, smuggling of red sanders and other crimes in the city, sources added.

Nazir has links with the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, said Dayananda. He added that Nazir’s gang members were planning to carry out “destructive activities” in Bengaluru.

Also read: NIA court jails 4 terrorists for 10 years for multiple blasts

The radicalisation

According to CCB sources, the five suspects were picked up by the police while they were plotting a conspiracy — of which the police had information.

The accused were living near a place of worship in the Kanakanagar area of Sultanpalya near RT Nagar within the Hebbal Police Station limits in North Bengaluru.

Another gang member, who was with these arrested accused, and who is holed up abroad, had been accused of killing his business rival Noor Ahmed in 2017.

In 2017, 21 people were arrested for abducting the 27-year-old Noor Ahmed, who was a sheep breeder from JC Nagar. He was abducted and killed near Chikkaballapura by this gang.

Nazir, who was absconding after the 2008 blasts, was arrested in 2009 by the Indian armed forces near the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya. He has been lodged in Parappana Agrahara Central Prisons since then.

Dayananda said, “The arrested were radicalised by T Nazir and then hatched a conspiracy to carry out destructive activities that could affect law and order in the city. Based on that information, we managed to arrest the accused.”

He added: “We have booked them under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and have produced the accused before the court and have taken them to 15 days of police custody for further questioning. We have also informed central agencies about the arrests.”

Also read: ‘Terrorism, anti-national activities will be dealt with firmly’