Bengaluru cafe blast: Cleric, 3 docs among 11 searched by NIA

The NIA that took over the Rameshwaram cafe blast case on March 3, had on April 12 arrested two key accused

A blast at The Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru occurred on March 1 (Express Photo by Jithendra M)

A cleric in Bengaluru, acquitted in a 2016 terror recruitment case, a doctor deported from Saudi Arabia and undertrial for a 2012 terror plot and two other doctors who served five-year prison terms for the 2012 terror plot were among 11 persons searched by the NIA on Tuesday after the probe into the March 1 blast at the Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru revealed the role of handlers linked to the earlier cases.

The searches at 11 locations in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh were conducted to “uncover the entire conspiracy behind the Rameshwaram Café blast case and to identify the other conspirators involved in handling the accused from abroad”, the NIA said.

The searches were conducted after the questioning of the two alleged perpetrators of the cafe blast — Abdul Matheen Taha, 30, and Mussavir Hussain Shazib, 30 — who were arrested from West Bengal on April 12. The probe revealed that the two accused were in contact with some accused persons in the 2012 LeT conspiracy case of Bengaluru, including a few who were released from prison in 2017 after serving five-year prison term and persons based abroad, the sources said.

The NIA searched the Bengaluru homes of cleric Anzar Shah Qasmi, 54, who was linked to an al Qaeda recruitment plot in 2016, and Dr Sabeel Ahmed, undertrial for the 2012 LeT conspiracy case, who was deported from the UK in 2007 after his brother Kafeel Ahmed, an aeronautics engineer, was killed in a suicide attack on the Glasgow airport.

Among the others from the 2012 LeT conspiracy case reported to have been searched by the NIA are Dr Zafar Iqbal Sholapur, 38, Dr Nayeem Siddique, 39, who were working in Coimbatore after their release from prison.

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