Nabbed J&K terror suspect worked as train porter in city

Talib Hussain, a terror suspect from Kashmir caught in Bengaluru last week, had managed to stay in a mosque here since the second Covid lockdown in 2021.

Said to be a member of the separatist group Hizbul Mujahideen, Hussain was arrested from a mosque in Okalipuram on May 29. He was wanted in a few cases related to terror attacks in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Jammu & Kashmir police say Hussain joined militancy in 2016 and allegedly recruited youths into his organisation.

Bengaluru police commissioner C H Pratap Reddy said on Tuesday they are collecting more details from the Jammu & Kashmir police.

A team of Rashtriya Rifles and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camped in Bengaluru from the first week of May. They kept a close watch on Hussain’s movements from a room in the Majestic area. After confirming that he was the one they were looking for, they informed the Srirampuram police and arrested him.

Hussain had worked as a porter at the KSR Railway Station and had rented a shed in Okalipuram. He had later started driving a goods auto.

He used to deliver goods to key locations like the airport, the Kempegowda bus stand and the city railway station, a senior police officer said.

Anwer Ahmed, president of Okalipuram mosque committee, suspects Hussain must have been in Bengaluru for 10 years. “During the second lockdown, he was driven out of his rented shed. He came to the mosque with his wife, a six-month-old baby and two older children, for shelter. On humanitarian grounds, we gave him the room used for storing firewood for preparing gruel during Ramzan,” he said. The mosque did not collect rent from him. Hussain was to leave in six months, but was allowed more time as the pandemic had disrupted his livelihood. “His wife had delivered a baby at the government hospital in Srirampuram. He was courteous when he approached us,” Ahmed said.

When Hussain’s older children caught chickenpox, people in the neighbourhood pooled in money and sent his wife back to Kashmir with her three children.

Hussain has two wives -- one who lived with him in Bengaluru and another in Kishtwar of J&K, according to police. Residents of Okalipuram had unwittingly helped Hussain with money, believing he was in distress.

“He used to work at the railway station and even delivered goods to airport, so we had assumed his employers had thoroughly verified his background,” a neighbour told DH.

Hussain kept to himself and looked like a regular man supporting his family. “Every Ramzan we would give him at least Rs 1,500. We also gave him smaller amounts every now and then. Now we wonder if all of that was just an act,” another neighbour says.

Apart from money and food, a resident had lent him a SIM card and donated clothes to his children. “It is scary to think who we had welcomed into our community,” he says.