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Bengaluru BJP office was first target of accused in cafe blast case: NIA
At least nine people were injured after a low-intensity IED exploded at Rameshwaram Cafe at ITPL Road in Brookefield on March 1.
The two key accused in the Bengaluru cafe explosion case were involved in a “failed IED (improvised explosive device) attack” at the office of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the city on January 22, the day of the consecration ceremony at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said on Monday, as it filed its charge sheet against four people in connection with the blast at the eatery.
In a statement, NIA said the accused – Abdul Matheen Taha, who planned the explosion and Mussavir Hussain Shazib, who planted the IED – were Islamic State radicals and were “actively involved in radicalising other gullible Muslim youth to the ISIS ideology”. “Maaz Muneer Ahmed and Muzammil Shareef were among such youth,” it said, referring to the remaining two accused who were named in the charge sheet.
The federal agency identified Mohammad Shaheed Faisal, an absconder in a 2012 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Bengaluru conspiracy case, as the “handler” who provided the four accused with funding.
“The funds were used by the accused to perpetrate various acts of violence in Bengaluru, investigations further revealed. These included a failed IED attack at the state BJP Office, Malleshwaram, Bengaluru, on the day of the Pran Pratishtha ceremony at Ayodhya on January 22, 2024, after which the two key accused planned the Rameshwaram Cafe blast,” it said.
An NIA officer, who did not wish to be identified, said: “During the course of interrogation, Shazib said he placed the IED on a bike outside the BJP office in Bengaluru on January 22. Neither did the device explode nor was it traced.”
At least nine people were injured after a low-intensity IED exploded at Rameshwaram Cafe at ITPL Road in Brookefield on March 1. Preliminary investigations zeroed in on a man who left a bag near the cash counter. NIA took over the case on March 3 on the directions of the ministry of home affairs.
Taha and Shazib were nabbed from a hotel in Digha in East Midnapore district of West Bengal in April. Ahmed and Shareef were arrested in March. A fifth accused, Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, was arrested in May but has not been named in the charge sheet so far.
“Moving swiftly in its probe, NIA on Monday chargesheeted four accused in the high-profile Bengaluru Rameshwaram Café blast case,” the agency said.
NIA said that Taha and Shazib were absconding since 2020 after the Al-Hind module (relating to a major terror conspiracy involving targeted killings and other such activities in Karnataka) was busted.
Both Taha and Shazib fraudulently obtained “Indian SIM cards and Indian bank accounts” besides “various Indian and Bangladeshi identity documents downloaded from the dark web (which is accessible only through specialised browsers) in carrying out their nefarious activities,” the agency said.
“Investigations further revealed that Taha had been introduced by an ex-convict, Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, to Mohammed Shaheed Faisal, an absconder in the LeT Bengaluru conspiracy case. Taaha then introduced Faisal, his handler, to Mehaboob Pasha, an accused in the Al-Hind ISIS module case, and to Khaja Mohideen, Amir of ISIS South India, and later also to Maaz Muneer Ahmed,” it added.
