On Monday, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed a chargesheet in Bengaluru’s Rameshwaram Cafe blast case on March 1. The accused- Mussavir Hussain Shazib, Abdul Mateen Ahmed Taaha, Maaz Muneer Ahmed and Muzammil Shareef, are suspected to have violated codes of laws like the Indian Penal Code, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Explosive Substances Act and the PDLP Act. All four were arrested earlier and are now in judicial custody for the same.
The case was one of the tragedies where the IED went off at the Rameshwaram Cafe in Brookfield ITPL Bengaluru and left nine people injured along with severe damage to the café. Further investigations by the NIA showed that Shazib was the one who conducted himself to plant the bomb in the cafe. He and the others, Taaha included, had been on the run since the Al-Hind module was busted in 2020. Both of them were arrested forty-two days after the explosion while the agency was searching for them in West Bengal.
From the findings of the NIA, it is evident that Shazib and Taaha, who are natives of the Shivamogga district in Karnataka, were ISIS members. They had planned to go to ISIS-controlled parts of Syria and were involved in the process of convincing other vulnerable Muslim youths to join the ISIS cause. Ahmed and Shareef were considered to be a part of this category of youths who are easily influenced due to their past extremism beliefs.
The duo is said to have allegedly procured Indian SIM cards using a fake identity and to have opened the bank account using other identification documents which they are alleged to have obtained from the Dark Web: both Indian and Bangladeshi. This special approach clearly reveals the extent to which the accused individuals went out to ensure that they did not get apprehended. The ongoing investigation focuses on the discrediting of the larger network behind this radicalization effort and the capturing of the individuals behind it.
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