Hubballi: Three of the eight terrorists of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), who were killed in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh on Monday, had stayed in a rented house at Arogya Nagar in Dharwad in 2014. Hailing from Uttar Pradesh, they posed as cloth merchants and stayed there for more than five months.
Soon after they moved out of Dharwad, they were detained in Hyderabad. Shivaji Kulkarni, the owner of the house, identified these activists after seeing their photographs. Anti-Terrorist Squads from Mumbai and Chennai had visited his house on November 21 last year and conducted a thorough search operation.
The house owner had identified only two terrorists, Mehboob Guddu Malik and Zakir Hussain Sadiq. He claimed that the trio had given their names as Santosh, Kishan and Arvind. A pawn shop owner near the house too had identified the SIMI terrorists, and claimed that they bought cigarettes from his shop.
The ATS squad had collected some information related to the bomb blast in Chennai during the raid on the house. The team searched internet centers and STD phone call centers that were allegedly visited by the trio. The ATS teams had come to Dharwad based on the information given by them.
The house owner and neighbours also claimed that the youths used to remain indoors throughout the day and ventured out to cyber cafes and STD phone booths during night. It was also revealed that a group of people from Hyderabad visited them frequently and the terrorists made international calls. Based on the IP address of the computers from where emails were sent, the ATS officials visited the cyber cafes to gather more details and found that they had reportedly sent email to various countries.
