TN, J&K seek custody of Nazir

TN police have landed in the City and are requesting Nazir’s custody. While the City police are keen on securing information pertaining to Karnataka and Bangalore, there is tremendous pressure on the top cops of Kerala to extract information on the two explosions at Kozhikode bus stands on March 3, 2006.

T Nazir, the alleged mastermind of Indian Mujahideen terror outfit, is believed to be behind an exfiltration bid by four Keralites through Kupwara last year. Majority of the data collected are matching with the earlier information available, sources said.
Interestingly, Tadiyantavide Nazir, born in Marakkarakanchi, Kerala, on April 23, 1977, also figures in the most wanted list of CBI and Interpol.

It is learnt that Jammu and Kashmir police are sending a team to Bangalore to seek custody of Nazir. He is wanted by the J&K Police to find out the exact number of youth who had managed to exfiltrate from the State.

He is alleged to have recruited dozens of youth from Kerala and sent them for terror training in Pak-occupied Kashmir using the exfiltration routes in the State.

His name surfaced last year when the State police shot dead four Kerala residents who were training with a Lashkar-e-Toiba unit in Kupwara district in  north J&K. He was also in constant touch with Indian Mujahideen commander Riyaz Shahbandri alias Riyaz Bhatkal.
A senior police official from the State said his custodial interrogation was necessary to know the names of people who had helped him in Karnataka.

‘Ginger farmer’

It has now come to light that  Nazir lived in a makeshift tent in a farm near Hosatota and posed as ginger farmer.

Nazir had leased a farm land belonging to one Abdul Rehman in 2007. The police have now found remains of a tent constructed in a forest-like area just near the farm, where Nazir and his accomplices Chota Haji, Ustad and Yusuf are believed to have lived.
The tent, which was about 100 metres from Rahman’s house, was off limits for others. Residents recall that a worker was once thrashed for entering the tent.

Residents also say that Nazir’s wife and children had visited him three or four times during his stay there. However, the family did not interact with any of the neighbours.
Incidentally, the farm where Nazir and his accomplices worked is just a stone’s throw away from Legislator M P Appachhu Ranjan’s house.