NIA gets four-day custody of six terror suspects

A special court on Saturday remanded six terror suspects to four-day's NIA custody till January 27.

Of the six suspects, five were produced amid tight security before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) designated court after they were medically examined.

"The court has granted four-day remand to interrogate them on charges filed against them," an NIA counsel told reporters later.

The NIA teams arrested the suspects on Friday, including four in Bengaluru and one each at Mangaluru and Tumakuru, which are 350 km and 70 km from here.

Five suspects Asif, Ahad, Mohammed Sohil, Mohammed Afzal and Syed Mujaid Pasha were present in the court, while sixth suspect Nazmal Huda was being brought to the city from Mangaluru on transit remand.

The arrests followed raids by NIA teams on rented houses and hideouts of the suspects. in the city.

Huge quantities of arms and ammunition were recovered and seized from the rented house of two suspects in the city's south-east suburb (Jakkasandra).

"The raids and arrests are part of the nationwide security steps being taken to prevent any incident and avoid panic in the public," Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara told reporters on Friday.

Huda is also accused of encouraging youth to join Islamic State (IS) terror group. He is a drop out from a private engineering college in Bengaluru.

"Raids were conducted on a tip-off that the suspects were planning bomb attacks on Republic Day (January 26) in the city or other places in the state to cause panic or seek publicity," a anti-terrorist squad official said on anonymity.

On alert and inputs from the home ministry, the state police have also taken steps to beef up security across the southern state, especially in and around Bengaluru, with additional deployment at sensitive and vital installations.