Mangaluru blast: Key suspect was on radar since Shivamogga stabbing

Around a little more than two months before the accidental blast, police in the Shivamogga region of Karnataka had gathered information suggesting that Shariq was trying to fabricate IEDs with the help of a couple of engineering students.

In the aftermath of a stabbing incident in Shivamogga on August 15, the police arrested a group of locals, including one Mohammed Jabi alias Charbi, 30, who had a criminal record.

Jabi’s interrogation and the analysis of his mobile phone alerted the police as he allegedly was receiving content on the Islamic State, and tutorials on how to make IEDs using easily available materials.

“We learnt that Shariq was behind radicalising Jabi. Based on his statement, Shariq too was considered an accused in the stabbing case. A separate case of terror under the UAPA was also filed on the basis of the statement by the suspect in the stabbing case,” police sources said.

“During investigations, police found a video on how to assemble an IED from Jabi’s mobile phone, which was sent by Shariq,” said another police source familiar with the probe.

The findings led to the arrest of two associates of Shariq – Maaz Ahmed and Syed Yasin, 21-year-old engineering students — for fiddling with techniques to make bombs.

A commerce graduate, Shariq, who had been in jail for eight months in 2021 for writing provocative graffiti on the wall of a police station in Mangaluru, fled Shivamogga and went underground. Maaz was a co-accused with Shariq in the graffiti case, police said.

Shariq allegedly used to discuss fundamental ideas and concepts of Jihad, and would send content related to extremism, ISIS and other terror outfits through encrypted messenger apps, the Shivamogga police had said in September. The suspects were members of a Telegram app channel run by an ISIS-linked media centre, the police had claimed two months ago.

After learning how to make IEDs from content shared by Shariq, the group allegedly purchased timer relay circuits online; two batteries of nine volts each, switches, wires, match boxes and other material in Shivamogga, the police said in September.

“As an experiment, the accused had exploded a bomb made by them at Kemmangundi on the banks of Tunga river in Shivamogga district and it was a success,” said a statement by the Shivamogga SP at the time.

Police sources said that before Shariq landed up in Mangaluru on the evening of November 19 with a crude bomb that exploded on his lap, a hunt had already been on for him.

The probe in Shivamogga revealed that Shariq had received funding in the form of crypto currency and he had entrusted one Syed Yasin to convert it into cash, police sources said. The source of the funding is suspected to be a missing suspect identified as Arafat Ali, allegedly based in Dubai, police sources said.

Since his hospitalisation on November 19, police have started analysing material on mobile phones used by Shariq. Police are yet to question Shariq to know the purpose of his visit to Mangaluru with an IED that day.