Team News Riveting
Bengaluru, April 12
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday arrested two accused in Bengaluru’s Rameshwaram Cafe blast case.
The nabbed accused include the mastermind. According to officials, the two accused identified as Mussavir Hussain Shazib and Adbul Matheen Ahmed Taahaa were traced to their hideout near Kolkata and apprehended by an NIA team.
The officials claimed Shazib was the one who placed the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at the cafe and Taahaa was the mastermind behind the planning and execution of the blast. In the morning hours of April 12, 2024, NIA was successful in tracing the absconding accused near Kolkata where they were hiding under false identities.
Both the accused first came to the notice of the agencies in the Al Hind IS module case in 2020 in Bengaluru. Mehboob Pasha, who ran the Al Hind Trust in Suddaguntepalya in Bengaluru and Khaja Moideen of Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu had put together an Islamic State inspired terror module, and were in advanced stages of setting up camps in the forests of south India from where they wanted to launch a IS-style insurgency. Abdul Matheen Taahaa and Mussavir Hussain Shazib evaded arrest and went underground.
Youths from Thirthahalli, allegedly radicalised by them, were involved in three terror cases — pro-terror graffiti in Mangaluru in October 2020, a trial blast of an Improvised Explosive Device on the banks of river Tunga in Shivamogga in September 2022, and cooker bomb blast in Mangaluru in November 2022. Four youths from Thirthahalli have been arrested in these cases. Taahaa and Hussain were named as accused in all the three cases.
The breakthrough came following coordinated action and cooperation among the NIA, central intelligence agencies and the state police agencies of West Bengal, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala. The NIA had last month announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh each for information leading to the arrest of these two accused.
An IED explosion rocked the cafe located on ITPL Road, Brookefield, Bengaluru, on March 1. Nine persons were injured in the blast.
