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Court remands LeT militants to 14-day police custody
Bangalore, Dec 5 (IANS):
Two suspected Lashker-e-Taiba militants, allegedly involved in the serial bomb blasts that rocked the city last year, were today remanded to 14-days police custody by a local court here.
Police said the two were produced before a magistrate last night soon after they were brought here and also this morning. The two, T Nazir and Shamas, were arrested along the Indo-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya and subsequently handed over by the Bangladesh Rifles to BSF on Wednesday. They were in Meghalaya police custody since then.
Nazir is the prime accused in the 2008 July bomb blasts that left one woman dead and twenty others injured and Shamas is also one of the accused.
Police said a senior police official of Inspector General rank from Kannur in Kerala is arriving here to assist the police in the questioning the duo, who speak Malayalam, Urdu and Hindi. Karnataka police had on Saturday began interrogating the two terrorists, handed over to India by Bangladesh on Wednesday, on their role in terror attacks in the city in 2005 and 2008.
Kerala police is expected to join their Karnataka counterparts to question T. Nazeer alias Nazeer Parvan and his relative Safiquq alias Shafaz Samsuddin as the two LeT men are wanted in various terror-related acts in the neighbouring state.
The two, who hail from Kannur in Kerala, were sent to Bangalore police custody for 14 days by a court here on Saturday.
The first major terror attack in the city took place at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science in December 2005. MC Puri, a retired professor of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, was killed when a lone gunman attacked delegates as they came out of an international conference.
In the second attack in July 2008, a woman was killed in a series of blasts in eastern and western parts of Bangalore.
Nazir and Samsuddin were arrested by Border Security Force (BSF) troopers from Umkrem near Dawki along the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya Wednesday morning after they were handed over by Bangladesh.
"Nazeer, 25, has admitted to police in Shillong about their involvement in the serial blasts that rocked Bangalore," according to a senior Meghalaya police official.
A Bangalore police team had gone to Shillong on Thursday to get their custody as the two are accused in the terror attacks in the city.
"Nazeer, believed to be the LeT's south India chief, has made some startling revelations about the LeT activities in India and their linkages with other outfits," a Meghalaya police official said, refusing to divulge details of the interrogation.
"The LeT cadres had been in Bangladesh for nearly a year and intended to shift their base to Dubai following the crackdown by Bangladeshi security forces," he added. Kerala police also want custody of Nazeer.
Inspector General of Police (Kerala) Tomin J Thachenkeri, who is in charge of the Northern Range in the state, told reporters in Kannur on Friday: "We are planning to have a joint interrogation with the Bangalore police of the accused."
Nazeer is wanted in Kerala in connection with an attempt to murder former chief minister E.K. Nayanar, another murder case and two charges of arson. According to the Kerala police, Nazeer was in Kerala just ahead of the Bangalore blast.
ce said the two were produced before a magistrate last night soon after they were brought here and also this morning.
