National Investigation Agency arrests fifth person accused in Bengaluru Rameshwaram cafe blast
The man, with alleged ties to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, had been previously convicted in a terror conspiracy case.
The National Investigation Agency on Friday arrested one more person accused of involvement in the Rameshwaram Cafe bomb blast in Bengaluru on March 1, reported The New Indian Express.
The low intensity explosion had injured 10 people.
The individual, Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, alias Chhotu, 35, is a resident of Karnataka’s Hubballi City and had been formerly convicted in a Lashkar-e-Taiba terror conspiracy case in Bengaluru. The central anti-terrorism agency claimed that Mirza had gotten involved in the Rameswaram Cafe blast after being released from jail.
Mirza is the fifth person to be arrested in connection with the blast. He was taken into custody after a three-day operation across four states by the National Investigation Agency.
In a statement on Friday, the agency said: “In a coordinated action, NIA teams searched 11 locations in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh. Extensive searches were conducted at the premises linked with 11 suspects in the case.”
“In 2018, Mirza had befriended and introduced accused Abdul Matheen Taha to an online handler suspected to be abroad,” an unidentified senior official from the National Investigation Agency was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “Mirza had further provided an e-mail ID for encrypted communication between the handler and Abdul Matheen Taha, who was arrested earlier on April 12 from his hideout in Kolkata (West Bengal) along with co-accused Mussavir Hussain Shazib.”
The National Investigation Agency has accused Taha of being the alleged chief conspirator in the case while Shazib has been accused of placing the Improvised Explosive Device at the cafe. They hail from the Thirthahalli area in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district.
They have also been accused of recruiting youths for the Islamic State terror group, a conspiracy to test improvised explosive devices in Shivamogga and an accidental bomb explosion in Mangaluru.
On March 27, the agency arrested Muzammil Shareef, a key conspirator in the case. The blast took place at the Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru in the afternoon on March 1. The National Investigation Agency took over the case on March 3.