Bengaluru: A key accused in the July 25, 2008 serial blasts in Bengaluru is now hiding in Peshawar, Pakistan, investigations by the NIA and the Kerala police have revealed.
According to a report in The Indian Express, KP Sabeer, allegedly linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had fled India on a fake passport in November 2008. His whereabouts have emerged now following investigations around KA Anoop, an alleged associate of Sabeer who was deported from the UAE last month.
The NIA had arrested Anoop on April 8, 2016 after he was detained on his arrival at IGI Airport, New Delhi, in connection with the September 2005 Kalamassery (Kochi) bus-burning case. An analysis of Anoop’s Dubai phone call records has revealed a number linked to Sabeer.
Sabeer alias Mohammad Sabeer alias Ayub, a former president of the SIMI in Kerala, is an accused in a number of cases, including the bus-burning case and a 2008 plot to facilitate terror training for youths from Kerala.
Sabeer had taken five youth to Kashmir in 2008 and handed them over to an LeT operative. The youths were allegedly being taken to an LeT camp for training but four of them were killed in an encounter with Indian security forces. Abdul Jabbar was the only youth who escaped, but he was later arrested by Kerala police.
Investigators say that once they got wind of the plots in the 2008 blasts case and the Kerala terror recruitment case, Sabeer fled India through Mumbai on a forged passport on November 21, 2008. Incredibly, he used the passport of a daily labourer named Shameer Kollamkudy Alikutty.
Sabeer took an Air India flight to Dubai. His fake passport was later found in a hotel on Kish Island in Iran.
Agencies also suspect that Sabeer’s escape was facilitated by the then key LeT commander for the India region, Rehan alias Wali alias Abdul Aziz alias Rashid Abdullah, who has also been linked to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
Pakistan-born Tahawwur Rana, who has been sentenced to 14 years in jail in the US for helping LeT man David Headley set up office in Mumbai ahead of the 26/11 attacks, is also suspected to have helped Sabeer escape.
