Rameshwaram Cafe blast suspects lived in Bengaluru while on the run in IS module case since 2020

Shazib has been identified as the person who planted an explosive device at The Rameshwaram Cafe in the Whitefield region on the eastern fringe of Bengaluru on March 1, leading to an explosion at 12.56 pm that left nine people injured. Taha was identified as “the mastermind behind the conspiracy” who planned and executed the explosion.

Sources said the duo who went missing in 2020 following a crackdown by multiple agencies, including the NIA, on an Islamic State module operating in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, stayed at facilities in the Ejipura and Marathahalli areas in southeast and east Bengaluru.

The NIA produced the two suspects in court on Monday, at the end of a 10-day police custody period, and was granted eight more days of custody. The agency can avail of 30 days of custodial interrogation of the accused under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967. It is also holding a third accused, Muzammil Shareef, in custody until Tuesday.

The NIA has reported the seizure of seven mobile phones and other equipment from the two main accused after their arrest in Kolkata. The phones are expected to provide a technical picture of the movement of the suspects during the execution of the cafe blast and their subsequent escape.

Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu

Apart from Bengaluru, the duo are alleged to have lived in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu while they were on the run since 2020.

Sources said the main suspects assembled the IED in Chennai in lodging facilities, where they were staying from the end of January 2024 to around the first week of March, and brought it to Bengaluru. The IED was armed in a bus stop near the cafe by Shazib, who arrived by a city bus, and the digital timer on the device was reportedly set for 90 minutes.

The NIA and other agencies are looking at the possible involvement of missing suspects from an older terror module that was exposed in Karnataka around 2012 as the handlers of the people arrested for the cafe blast, sources said. A former member of a module who served a jail term and was released was quizzed last week by investigative agencies in this regard.

Mangaluru pressure cooker blast

Meanwhile, the special court for terrorism cases in Bengaluru on April 20 framed charges of terrorism against two members of the Shivamogga module of the Islamic State, which was led by Taha, in connection with an accidental cooker blast that occurred in an autorickshaw in Mangaluru on November 19, 2022.

The special court has framed charges of terrorism against Mohammed Shariq, 25, who was carrying a pressure cooker IED in an autorickshaw when it accidentally exploded, and his associate Syed Yasin, 22, in connection with the blast in Mangaluru.

Sources said the IED went off accidentally on account of Shariq wrongly fixing the timer on the device for 90 seconds rather than an intended 90 minutes. He was arrested after the pressure cooker exploded in a bag that he was holding in his lap. The NIA has alleged the IED was intended to be planted at a well-known temple in Mangaluru.

Based on a chargesheet filed by the NIA last year in the cooker blast case in Mangaluru the special court for terror cases has charged Shariq and Yasin of conspiring “between 15.08.2022 and 19.11.2022, in Thirthahalli, Mangaluru, Bengaluru, Mysuru and other places,” along with Islamic State online handler “Colonel” to “further the terror activities of Islamic State, a banned terrorist organization…”

The two accused people have pleaded not guilty and sought to be tried in the case.