Why is NIA missing in action, in spite of big terror arrests?
The National Investigation Agency team from Bengaluru did take a peek after the arrest of the trio, but then left without digging deeper into the issue
NIA is more Not in Action than% National Investigation Agency in the 'breakthrough' arrests made by the Bangalore police on Thursday when it picked up two people from Pulikeshinagar and one from Bhatkal.
The trio, the city police claimed, was branded as operatives of the Indian Mujahideen, who were adept at manufacturing home-made explosives and were supplying these to field terrorists.
The police, in both on- and off-the-record statements, have said that they supplied the explosive for the twin Dilsukhnagar blasts in Hyderabad in 2013 that killed 17 people. The police have gone further to hint that the trio could have been planning 'something major' on the eve of Barack Obama's visit during Republic Day %celebrations, though the US president is not coming anywhere near Bengaluru.
In spite of such terror record and foiled plans, the arrests of the three, coming as it did after the Church Street blast, has not tickled the interest of the NIA; it is a bit odd, say sources. The NIA website holds forth: ''...it becomes necessary that such investigations and prosecutions, as well as tracking of terrorists and fugitives from across the country, are also centrally coordinated, which would deny any advantage to terrorists. As per the National Investigation Agency (Manner of Constitution) Rules, 2008, NIA is to provide assistance to, and %seek assistance from other intelligence and investigation agencies of the central %government and state %governments.''
According to sources, the NIA team from Bengaluru did take a peek after the arrest of the trio, but then left without evincing a deeper scrutiny. ``We do not know whether NIA is in touch with the city police or not. We do not know what NIA's take on these arrests is. If they do not take %over the case in the coming days, obviously there is no national angle in it,'' a retired police official, who has worked in terror cases during his tenure as DGP, said. Meanwhile, sources in Bangalore police told Bangalore Mirror that the arrests, which have been questioned by the family of the accused, were a joint operation by the Intelligence Bureau and them. It is IB which got a 'tip-off' and it alerted the Bangalore police.
Post arrests of three 'IM operatives' — Abdus Saboor, an MBA student, Saddam Hussein, Syed Ismail Afaq — various questions are being raised over the nature and manner %of the arrest.
Police claimed that they seized a large quantity of explosives from Afaq's house in Bhatkal. But, Afaq's parents held a press conference in the city on Saturday and claimed that their house has been under lock ''for along time''. Police went there with several boxes and planted the ingredients for explosives, the parents alleged.
Another officer who is familiar with police way of handling terror cases said, ''After the Church Street blast, the Bangalore police are under tremendous pressure. IB input on the three came around the same time. They must be using the arrests to deflate public and media glare.''
According to those in the know, NIA is quite wary of Bangalore police going by the latter's actions in the past. They had actually given clean chit to a journalist and two others in an earlier arrest made by Bangalore police, again based on a tip-off from IB two years ago. This time, if they do not take over the case, we can conclude that it is not a big breakthrough as being made out by the Bangalore Police. If they take over the case, they will do justice to the case and the arrested, the retired DGP added.
Trio has been framed, says family
Vehemently protesting the innocence of their sons, the parents of the homeopathy doctor, Syed Ismail Afaq, and the two others arrested along with him, say the trio has been made scapegoats by the cops.
Addressing the media on Saturday, family members of the three men picked holes in the police's version of the arrest and related events. "The police have claimed they recovered explosives from the house of Abdus Subur in Bhatkal. It is rather surprising since the house was locked for the past two months. Besides, the manner in which the recovery was done raises doubts." The parents said some relatives of Subur, who were present, requested for a mahajar (spot report) done in their presence. But they were allegedly not allowed anywhere in the vicinity. "Some policemen in mufti entered the locked house with some packets. After that the police claimed explosives were recovered," was the parents' accusation.
On January 8, City Crime Branch sleuths arrested Dr Syed Ismail Afaq, 35, MBA student Abdus Subur, 24, and a poor scrap dealer from Bhatkal, Saddam Hussein. Afaq and Subur also hail from Bhatkal. The police claimed the three had confessed to their links to banned terror outfits in the country. While Afaq was alleged to have supplied explosives for the February 21, 2013 blast in a crowded shopping area of Dilsukhnagar in Hyderabad, the other two were tagged as his accomplices. Police had not ruled out the possibility of the three terror suspects planning to target US President Barack Obama during Republic Day celebrations in Delhi. They were also suspected to be suppliers of explosives to the Indian Mujahideen.
However, their family members have come out to publicly contradict several of the police claims. Saddam Hussein's family is from Shimoga. His father, a painter by profession, had shifted to Bhatkal about 30 years back. Devastated over his arrest, his wife Sahira Hussein says her husband, a class V dropout, supported his family by collecting scrap from Bhatkal and surrounding areas and selling it to scrap dealers. "We are a very poor family and the responsibility of providing for me and our three kids, besides his parents, rested on his shoulders." She says his sister's marriage has been fixed for January 28, but Saddam's arrest has cast a shadow on the occasion. "On January 8, he left home at 7.30 am. He was to go to the bus stand to dispatch wedding invites to Shimoga. I came to know that on the way 10-12 persons in an Innova had kidnapped him," Sahira said.
She says they combed the entire town to track him, but their search proved futile. "At 2 pm on January 8, a few policemen in mufti arrived and conducted a search of the entire house. They continued their search the next day too." Saddam is known in the entire area to be an honest person who works hard to earn his living. "He has been fixed. With our sole breadwinner behind bars, our family is at a loss."
Alleging torture by the police, Sahira says her husband could barely walk when he was produced before in court.
Meanwhile, the family members of Dr Syed Ismail Afaq believe he is a victim of mistaken identity. "Afaq is definitely a victim of wrong identity. We fervently hope that honest and impartial investigations will prove his innocence," said his parents.
Constructing the events of the day he was arrested, they said the homeopathy doctor, who had been practicing in Bhatkal, was planning to move to Bengaluru. He arrived in Bengaluru along with his parents by train on January 8. Around 9 am, Afaq, along with his brother Dr Abdul Azeez and their parents, reached their Cox Town home. "He, his brother and cousin Subur left the house after breakfast. About 50 metres from the house, a Bolero with six persons inside stopped them and pushed them into vehicle. They were taken to the interrogation centre in Madiwala. Azeez was questioned several times and let off the next day. He was made to sign an arrest intimation in respect of Afaq and Subur," Afaq's parents Abdul Aleem and Noorunnisa said at the press conference.
They said after receiving his BMHS degree in 2002, Afaq practiced in Bhatkal for nine years. He is married to a former Bhatkali girl, Arsala Abeer, who is a Pakistani citizen and the couple has three children.
The parents of Abdus Subur, who is a cousin of Afaq, say he had travelled along with the latter to Bengaluru. A final year management student at Anjuman Institute of Technology and Management, he was to stay in the city till February to complete his project. Subur's house at Jamiabad Road, Bhatkal, had been locked for the past two months as his mother had moved in with Afaq's family after the homeopath was blessed with a son. Subur's mother also planned to travel to Kerala to explore whether she could donate her kidneys to her brother whose kidneys had failed.
His parents Mohammed Hussein and Qamarunnissa said though the police have claimed to have recovered explosives from their home, the entire operation appeared dubious. "Plainclothed policemen entered the locked house with some packets and then the police revealed explosives were recovered. It is all a lie. My son is not a part of this racket and he will come out clean."
The families affirmed they had full faith in the judiciary and a fair and impartial investigation would vindicate their stand.
NIA is more Not in Action than% National Investigation Agency in the 'breakthrough' arrests made by the Bangalore police on Thursday when it picked up two people from Pulikeshinagar and one from Bhatkal.
The trio, the city police claimed, was branded as operatives of the Indian Mujahideen, who were adept at manufacturing home-made explosives and were supplying these to field terrorists.
The police, in both on- and off-the-record statements, have said that they supplied the explosive for the twin Dilsukhnagar blasts in Hyderabad in 2013 that killed 17 people. The police have gone further to hint that the trio could have been planning 'something major' on the eve of Barack Obama's visit during Republic Day %celebrations, though the US president is not coming anywhere near Bengaluru.
In spite of such terror record and foiled plans, the arrests of the three, coming as it did after the Church Street blast, has not tickled the interest of the NIA; it is a bit odd, say sources. The NIA website holds forth: ''...it becomes necessary that such investigations and prosecutions, as well as tracking of terrorists and fugitives from across the country, are also centrally coordinated, which would deny any advantage to terrorists. As per the National Investigation Agency (Manner of Constitution) Rules, 2008, NIA is to provide assistance to, and %seek assistance from other intelligence and investigation agencies of the central %government and state %governments.''
According to sources, the NIA team from Bengaluru did take a peek after the arrest of the trio, but then left without evincing a deeper scrutiny. ``We do not know whether NIA is in touch with the city police or not. We do not know what NIA's take on these arrests is. If they do not take %over the case in the coming days, obviously there is no national angle in it,'' a retired police official, who has worked in terror cases during his tenure as DGP, said. Meanwhile, sources in Bangalore police told Bangalore Mirror that the arrests, which have been questioned by the family of the accused, were a joint operation by the Intelligence Bureau and them. It is IB which got a 'tip-off' and it alerted the Bangalore police.
Post arrests of three 'IM operatives' — Abdus Saboor, an MBA student, Saddam Hussein, Syed Ismail Afaq — various questions are being raised over the nature and manner %of the arrest.
Police claimed that they seized a large quantity of explosives from Afaq's house in Bhatkal. But, Afaq's parents held a press conference in the city on Saturday and claimed that their house has been under lock ''for along time''. Police went there with several boxes and planted the ingredients for explosives, the parents alleged.
Another officer who is familiar with police way of handling terror cases said, ''After the Church Street blast, the Bangalore police are under tremendous pressure. IB input on the three came around the same time. They must be using the arrests to deflate public and media glare.''
According to those in the know, NIA is quite wary of Bangalore police going by the latter's actions in the past. They had actually given clean chit to a journalist and two others in an earlier arrest made by Bangalore police, again based on a tip-off from IB two years ago. This time, if they do not take over the case, we can conclude that it is not a big breakthrough as being made out by the Bangalore Police. If they take over the case, they will do justice to the case and the arrested, the retired DGP added.
Trio has been framed, says family
Vehemently protesting the innocence of their sons, the parents of the homeopathy doctor, Syed Ismail Afaq, and the two others arrested along with him, say the trio has been made scapegoats by the cops.
Addressing the media on Saturday, family members of the three men picked holes in the police's version of the arrest and related events. "The police have claimed they recovered explosives from the house of Abdus Subur in Bhatkal. It is rather surprising since the house was locked for the past two months. Besides, the manner in which the recovery was done raises doubts." The parents said some relatives of Subur, who were present, requested for a mahajar (spot report) done in their presence. But they were allegedly not allowed anywhere in the vicinity. "Some policemen in mufti entered the locked house with some packets. After that the police claimed explosives were recovered," was the parents' accusation.
On January 8, City Crime Branch sleuths arrested Dr Syed Ismail Afaq, 35, MBA student Abdus Subur, 24, and a poor scrap dealer from Bhatkal, Saddam Hussein. Afaq and Subur also hail from Bhatkal. The police claimed the three had confessed to their links to banned terror outfits in the country. While Afaq was alleged to have supplied explosives for the February 21, 2013 blast in a crowded shopping area of Dilsukhnagar in Hyderabad, the other two were tagged as his accomplices. Police had not ruled out the possibility of the three terror suspects planning to target US President Barack Obama during Republic Day celebrations in Delhi. They were also suspected to be suppliers of explosives to the Indian Mujahideen.
However, their family members have come out to publicly contradict several of the police claims. Saddam Hussein's family is from Shimoga. His father, a painter by profession, had shifted to Bhatkal about 30 years back. Devastated over his arrest, his wife Sahira Hussein says her husband, a class V dropout, supported his family by collecting scrap from Bhatkal and surrounding areas and selling it to scrap dealers. "We are a very poor family and the responsibility of providing for me and our three kids, besides his parents, rested on his shoulders." She says his sister's marriage has been fixed for January 28, but Saddam's arrest has cast a shadow on the occasion. "On January 8, he left home at 7.30 am. He was to go to the bus stand to dispatch wedding invites to Shimoga. I came to know that on the way 10-12 persons in an Innova had kidnapped him," Sahira said.
She says they combed the entire town to track him, but their search proved futile. "At 2 pm on January 8, a few policemen in mufti arrived and conducted a search of the entire house. They continued their search the next day too." Saddam is known in the entire area to be an honest person who works hard to earn his living. "He has been fixed. With our sole breadwinner behind bars, our family is at a loss."
Alleging torture by the police, Sahira says her husband could barely walk when he was produced before in court.
Meanwhile, the family members of Dr Syed Ismail Afaq believe he is a victim of mistaken identity. "Afaq is definitely a victim of wrong identity. We fervently hope that honest and impartial investigations will prove his innocence," said his parents.
Constructing the events of the day he was arrested, they said the homeopathy doctor, who had been practicing in Bhatkal, was planning to move to Bengaluru. He arrived in Bengaluru along with his parents by train on January 8. Around 9 am, Afaq, along with his brother Dr Abdul Azeez and their parents, reached their Cox Town home. "He, his brother and cousin Subur left the house after breakfast. About 50 metres from the house, a Bolero with six persons inside stopped them and pushed them into vehicle. They were taken to the interrogation centre in Madiwala. Azeez was questioned several times and let off the next day. He was made to sign an arrest intimation in respect of Afaq and Subur," Afaq's parents Abdul Aleem and Noorunnisa said at the press conference.
They said after receiving his BMHS degree in 2002, Afaq practiced in Bhatkal for nine years. He is married to a former Bhatkali girl, Arsala Abeer, who is a Pakistani citizen and the couple has three children.
The parents of Abdus Subur, who is a cousin of Afaq, say he had travelled along with the latter to Bengaluru. A final year management student at Anjuman Institute of Technology and Management, he was to stay in the city till February to complete his project. Subur's house at Jamiabad Road, Bhatkal, had been locked for the past two months as his mother had moved in with Afaq's family after the homeopath was blessed with a son. Subur's mother also planned to travel to Kerala to explore whether she could donate her kidneys to her brother whose kidneys had failed.
His parents Mohammed Hussein and Qamarunnissa said though the police have claimed to have recovered explosives from their home, the entire operation appeared dubious. "Plainclothed policemen entered the locked house with some packets and then the police revealed explosives were recovered. It is all a lie. My son is not a part of this racket and he will come out clean."
The families affirmed they had full faith in the judiciary and a fair and impartial investigation would vindicate their stand.
So, now, for every 'Bomb Blast' anywhere, the STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE for the Karnataka Police is to Follow :
(1) Rule number ONE : Declare on the
spot, at Ground Zero, that SIMI / IM / Al-Ummah or any other 'Organisation with
a Muslim Title' is Suspected, and IMMEDIATELY "Head towards Bhatkal or
failing which Head to Chennai, arrest a few Muslim Boys whether linked directly
to the stated organisations or not, Bring them to Bengaluru, Extract a
'Confession' using whatever means that will make you SUCCESSFUL in extracting
the confession at the earliest, PREPARE a CHARGE SHEET appending the EXTRACTED
CONFESSION as the SOLE EVIDENCE or if possible add SOME PLANTED evidence also as RECOVERED EVIDENCE to clinch
the case and IMMEDIATELY ANNOUNCE to the WORLD that the CASE is solved and
"GO to SLEEP" till the next Bomb Blast wakes you up!
Rule (2) .....
Rule (3) .....
.............
Rule No (N..ie. LAST) : Always
FOLLOW RULE NO. "ONE" &
DISREGARD all other RULES mentioned above!
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