Mangaluru cooker blast: key accused Shariq gets 10 years in jail after guilty plea

“The offender/Accused No.1 is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of ten (10) years and is liable to pay a fine of Rs 10,000/- for the offence punishable under Section 307 of the IPC (attempt to murder). In default of payment of the fine, he shall undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months,” the special court for terrorism cases said.

“The offender / Accused No.1 is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of ten (10) years and is liable to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/- for the offence punishable under Section 16(b) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. In default of payment of the fine, he shall undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of three months,” the court said.

A fine of Rs 93,000 has also been imposed on Shariq under the 16 charges for his conviction.

“The substantial sentences imposed on the offender/Accused No.1 shall run concurrently. The period of detention undergone by the offender/Accused No.1 in judicial custody shall be set off against the term of imprisonment imposed, as provided under Section 428 of the CrPC,” the court said.

Shariq has been in prison for three years since his arrest.

On March 26, the court allowed Shariq’s guilty plea application.

The cooker bomb Shariq was allegedly planning to plant in Mangaluru accidentally detonated on his lap inside the autorickshaw due to an erroneous setting of the timer on the device. He was arrested by the NIA after his discharge from a hospital in Mangaluru.

Shivamogga IS module

Shariq’s guilty plea is seen as an attempt to obtain early release from prison. He is a member of an alleged Islamic State module that emerged in Shivamogga and has been linked to multiple terror-linked incidents in Karnataka since 2020.

When the Mangaluru blast occurred, Shariq was already wanted in a case registered in Shivamogga in September 2022 over alleged links to an Islamic State module that had tested improvised explosive devices (IEDs). He had been arrested in 2020 as well for painting anti-national graffiti on a wall in Mangaluru.

Members of the Shivamogga Islamic State module are also accused in the March 1, 2024, Rameshwaram Cafe blast case in Bengaluru, where an IED similar to the one carried by Shariq in Mangaluru was planted by Mussavir Hussain, a founding member of the Shivamogga module, along with the now-arrested Abdul Matheen Taha.

The Shivamogga module is suspected to have received over Rs 3 lakh in cryptocurrency from its handlers between 2020 and 2022. Shariq, who was allegedly training others to make IEDs, sent money to Syed Yasin, the only other accused in the Mangaluru blast case, through cryptocurrency to make a bomb that was tested in Shivamogga in August-September 2022.

Shariq, who holds a BCom degree, was in jail for eight months in 2021 for writing provocative graffiti on a police station wall in Mangaluru.

Shariq has not pleaded guilty in the Shivamogga IED testing case, where three of 12 accused have filed guilty pleas and they have been accepted.