Hyderabad: The NIA probe has revealed that The Base Movement (translated as Al-Qaeda) was responsible for the low intensity blasts in Madurai in May 2012, and for targeting BJP leaders later. The NIA had arrested six terror suspects in a joint operation of the Telangana and TN police in connection with the series of blasts at court complexes in South India. The NIA is probing the likely links of the arrested suspects led by TCS engineer Dawood Suleiman with the terror suspects of the Islamic Defence Force and the elusive terror suspect Abu Bakr Siddique.
A senior police official said, “There were several minor blasts in Madurai from 2010 to 2015. The NIA is working on the links of the accused to them. The links to earlier suspects of the IDF and Al Umma arrested in Puttur in Chitoor are also being looked into. In 2013 the OCTOPUS and the TN police smoked out three terror suspects of the IDF, Panna Ismail, ‘Police’ Fakruddin and Bilal Malik from a house in Puttur in Chittor district.”
The accused including Bilal Malik and Panna Ismail, are involved in the blasts at the BJP office in Bengaluru, an attempt to attack L.K. Advani with pipe bombs during his Jan Chetna Yatra in Madurai and the murders of BJP and RSS leaders. The suspects, belonging to the IDF, attempted to blast a pipe bomb during Advani's Jan Chetna Yatra in Madurai. They had also planted bombs under a causeway at Alampatti in Madurai district. The IDF which works closely with Al-Umma is also involved in the bomb blast at the BJP headquarters in Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, a team of AP counter-intelligence on Tuesday left for Bengaluru to question the accused kept at the ITBP camp by NIA. An official of the Andhra Pradesh CI cell said, “The NIA informed us that the accused had confessed their role in all the five blasts including that at Chittoor and Nellore.” Sources said that all the accused attended the same mosque. At Nellore and Malappuram courts the suspects left a note threatening Prime Minister Modi.
Out of the six accused the NIA had shown the arrest of two accused Shamsudeen, 25, son of Sikander, a resident of Thayir Market Nelpattai in Madurai and Mohammed Ayub, 25, son of Md Dhaslim, a resident of Kaipathur in Madurai. On Monday the NIA arrested Abbas Ali, 27, son of Nainar Mohammed, a resident of Ismailpuram in Madurai, Dawood Suleiman, 23, the son of Saeed Mohammed Abdulla of Karimsa Pallivasal, Madurai, now residing at Chennai, Samsum Karim Raja son of V.S. Mohammed Jainullahbuddin, a resident of Viswanatha Nagar, K. Pudur, Madurai. One more suspect is still being questioned. The gang used pressure cookers, timers, gunpowder and potassium chlorate for making low intensity IEDs.
Security up at Nampally court:
The Hyderabad police is beefing up security at the Nampally court. Following the arrest of six terror suspects on Monday, the NIA found that their target was the judiciary. The Hyderabad central zone police is beefing up security at the court.
Central zone DCP Joel Davis said the police identified some problems in CCTV cameras installed at the court. “We are insisting on rectifying the CCTVs. We usually beef up security during special cases,” he said. Besides this, officials have directed teams of patrolling vans, Blue Colts and interceptor vehicles to increase surveillance in areas near the court.
