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Mangaluru cooker blast case: Bengaluru court accepts main accused’s guilty plea
Mohammed Shariq, the main accused in the Mangaluru cooker blast case, had initially pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges.
Mangaluru cooker blast case saw a key development as a Bengaluru special court accepted the guilty plea of main accused Mohammed Shariq. (File Photo)
A special court for terrorism cases in Bengaluru has accepted a guilty plea filed by Mohammed Shariq, the main accused in the Mangaluru cooker bomb blast case. The blast occurred inside an autorickshaw in the coastal city on November 19, 2022.
Shariq, 27, who hails from Shivamogga, had initially pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in the case on April 20, 2024. Later, he filed a guilty plea in December 2025, which the special court accepted on March 26. The court has scheduled a fresh hearing to record the plea.
“The application filed by accused No.1, Mr. Mohammed Shariq @ Shariq @ Mohammed Sharik @ Premraj Hutagi @ Premraj @ Gowli Arun Kumar, under Section 229 of the Cr.P.C., is hereby allowed. Since the application filed by accused No.1 u/S.229 of Cr.P.C is allowed, it is necessary to record the plea of accused No.1 again by reading over the charges already framed on 20.04.2024,” the special court said on Thursday.
Shariq suffered serious burn injuries when the cooker bomb he was carrying to allegedly plant in Mangaluru accidentally detonated on his lap due to an erroneous setting of the timer on the device. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested him after he was discharged from a hospital in Mangaluru.
The Shivamogga IS module
Shariq is an alleged member of an Islamic State module from Shivamogga that is linked to multiple terror-linked incidents in the state since 2020. His move to file a guilty plea is seen as an attempt to obtain early release from prison after being sentenced for charges of terrorism, criminal conspiracy, attempt to murder, forgery and charges under the Explosive Substances Act.
When the Mangaluru incident occurred, Shariq was already wanted in a terror case registered in Shivamogga in September 2022, for alleged links to an Islamic State module that had tested IEDs. He had been arrested in 2020 for painting anti-national graffiti on a wall in Mangaluru.
Members of the Shivamogga module are also accused in the March 1, 2024, Rameshwaram Cafe blast case in Bengaluru, where an IED similar to the one allegedly used by Shariq in Mangaluru on November 19, 2022, was allegedly planted by Mussavir Hussain, a founding member of the Shivamogga module, along with the now-arrested Abdul Matheen Taha.
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The Shivamogga module is suspected to have received over Rs 3 lakh in cryptocurrency from handlers between 2020 and 2022. Shariq, who was allegedly training others to make IEDs, reportedly sent money to Syed Yasin—the other accused in the Mangaluru blast case—through cryptocurrency to make a bomb that was tested in Shivamogga in August-September 2022.
A Bachelor of Commerce degree holder, Shariq was in jail for eight months in 2021 for writing provocative graffiti on a police station wall in Mangaluru. He has not moved the special court to plead guilty in the 2022 Shivamogga module IED testing case, where three of 12 accused have filed guilty pleas. Of these, the pleas of two accused were accepted last year.
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