The prime accused in the case, Junaid, is absconding, and he is believed to have escaped to a foreign country, police said.
Published Jul 22, 2023 | 11:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jul 22, 2023 | 11:00 AM
Representational image of an accused behind bars.
Union Minister of State for Agriculture Shobha Karandlaje has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, requesting him to hand over the investigation into the recent Bengaluru terror arrests to the National Investigating Agency (NIA).
Her request came a day after the Central Crime Branch’s (CCB) chief, Joint Commissioner SD Sharanappa, announced to the media that his teams recovered four hand grenades from the house of one of the five terror suspects arrested in Bengaluru.
According to the CCB sleuths, the four hand grenades were recovered from the house of Jahid Tabrez, in Bhadrappa Layout on Kodigehalli Main Road in North Bengaluru.
The grenades were found inside a safe in an almirah in a separate room in Tabrez’s house.
The Bomb Disposal and Detection Squad, which defused the hand grenades, said they were “ready-to-use” and were parceled and sent to Tabrez’s house where he was instructed to keep them safely, Sharanappa told reporters.
On the night of Tuesday, 18 July, the CCB had arrested the five terrorists allegedly belonging to Lashker-E-Taiba (LeT) from the Kanakanagar area in Sultanpalya near RT Nagar in North Bengaluru.
The arrested were identified as Syed Suhail Khan, Mohammad Faizal Rabbani, Mohammad Umar, Jahid Tabrez, and Syed Mudassir.
A cache of seven countrymade pistols, 45 live rounds, two sets of walkie-talkies, a dagger, and 12 mobile phones and SIM cards were recovered from the five.
The CCB had said that the quintet had been radicalised by a LeT operative based abroad as well as a terror accused at the Parappan Agrahara Central prison.
Bengaluru City Commissioner of Police (CP) B Dayananda said that charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA, were slapped on them.
Dayananda said that one of the prime accused in the case, Junaid, was absconding, and he is believed to have escaped to a foreign country.
He was one among those who were arrested in a kidnap-and-murder case of a sheep breeder that took place in 2017 in JC Nagar, and was in prison for 18 months before being released on bail.
Junaid is then said to have come in contact with Thadiyantevide Nazir, or T Nazir, one of the prime accused in the 2008 Bengaluru serial blasts case who is at present lodged at the Parappana Agrahara prison, CCB sources told South First.
According to the CCB sources, the arrested terror suspects were in touch with both T Nazir and Junaid.
It was T Nazir who allegedly radicalised the five suspects and persuaded them to carry out destructive activities in Bengaluru, the police sources said.
However, it was Junaid who provided them with assistance in terms of weapons and other equipment. He had given them instructions to carry out their activities in the city, CCB sources said.
In her letter to the Union home minister, the Minister Karandlaje also wrote about another development where a person by name of Fayazullah Ali was arrested for supplying illegal weapons in Davangere district in Karnataka.
“There appears to be a strong network and nexus of such terrorists operating in Karnataka and other states. An ecosystem supporting these terrorists seems to have been developing and it is supporting them with procurement of weapons, financial and logistic support,” Karandlaje wrote in her letter.
The Union minister tweeted that she had requested Shah to entrust the NIA with the investigation. “The gravity of the situation necessitates the NIA’s competence to apprehend the perpetrators and dismantle their networks,” she said.
Have requested HM Sri @AmitShah Ji to entrust the NIA with the investigation into the recent arrest of Lashker-E-Taiba terrorists in Bengaluru.
The gravity of the situation necessitates the NIA’s competence to apprehend the perpetrators and dismantle their networks. pic.twitter.com/XANDZeQT17
— Shobha Karandlaje (@ShobhaBJP) July 21, 2023
“Considering the gravity of the situation, national security, and the proliferation of criminals across far-off places, it would be prudent to hand over the investigation to the NIA, which is best equipped to handle such cases and bring them to a logical conclusion.
“The NIA’s expertise in cracking such cases makes it the ideal agency to take over this investigation immediately in the larger interest of the nation,” Karandlaje’s letter stated.
