In a major blow to the banned terror group Indian Mujahideen, the intelligence agencies in a coordinated action with the Bihar and Karnataka Police arrested the outfit’s co-founder Yasin Bhatkal from the India-Nepal border on Thursday morning. Bhatkal is wanted in about 40 terror cases and carried a reward of Rs35 lakh from various agencies. He is the second prize catch after leT mastermind Abdul Karim Tunda, who was arrested last fortnight.
On the run for over five years in several countries including Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, 30-year-old Yasin was nabbed along with another IM terrorist Asadulla Akhtar, alias ‘Haddi’.
Intelligence and security agencies intensified search for Yasin after the Bodh Gaya blasts earlier this year and his whereabouts were pinpointed to the Terai belt of India-Nepal border with a significant density of mosques and madrassas. Following the inputs, the intelligence agencies developed sources in area before finally zeroing in on him last night.
Top intelligence sources said they wanted to first interrogate Yasin for a week and then formally arrest him. This was because another major terrorist was under surveillance and the agency wanted to nab him along with Bhatkal. However, he was shown to be formally arrested after reports of his custody surfaced in the media.
The Intelligence Bureau, meanwhile, has launched a probe to ascertain the leak of Yasin’s custody. A few officials of the Nepalese embassy in India are suspected to have leaked the information on Yasin’s custody to the Indian media.
Crossing over to Nepal after carrying out terror strike is routine for the members of terror groups operating here. They find a safe haven in the hub of mosques and madrassas along the India-Nepal border near Gorakhpur, intelligence sources said.
They said Bhatkal’s questioning will reveal the whereabouts and modus operandi of other wanted IM terrorists and insights into the active modules and sleeper cells of the outfit.
The IM was created and patronised by the lashkar-e-Tayyaba and ISI and most of its leaders are former activists of banned SIMI. The IM was designated a terror group by the Centre under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in June, 2010. In 2011, the US declared it as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation.
Yasin and Akhtar will be flown to Delhi on Friday in a special plane and formally handed over to NIA for questioning.
“Yasin Bhatkal was traced along the Bihar-Nepal border last night by our intelligence agencies. He is under the custody of the Bihar Police and his interrogation is going on,” Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told the media outside Parliament House.
Yasin hit the headlines after the 2008 Delhi serial blasts in which 30 people were killed. He is suspected to be the mastermind of these five blasts.
During the probe, his role was traced back to 2004 for allegedly distributing explosive material from Karnataka. He is also suspected to have played an active role in the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts that left 187 people dead.
Yasin, who hails from Bhatkal village of Udupi district in north Karnataka, is wanted in a string of terror attacks in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Bangalore, Pune, Delhi and Hyderabad. Following his arrest, various police forces have sought his custody to probe his role in terror cases in the respective States.
Yasin, who is also wanted in the German Bakery blast in Pune on February 13, 2010 that left 17 dead, formed IM with his brother Riaz and associates Riyaz Shahbandri, Abdul Subhan Qureshi, Sadiq Israr Sheikh and gangster-turned terrorist Amir Reza Khan.
Yasin, alias Mohammad Zarar Ahmed Siddhibappa, along with three aides Tahaseen Akhtar Wasim Aktar Shaikh (23), Asadulla Akhtar (26) and Waqas alias Ahmed (26), was allegedly behind three coordinated bomb explosions at Opera House, Zaveri Bazaar and Dadar West in Mumbai on July 13, 2011 that left 27 dead and 130 injured.
Bhatkal is also wanted in connection with the explosion outside the Delhi High Court on September 7, 2011 in which 12 persons were killed in 2010.
Yasin was spotted on CCTV minutes ahead of the German bakery blast in Pune as also in Hyderabad earlier this year.
He gave the agencies slip at least twice. Yasin was detained in Kolkata and Mumbai from where he managed to get released by concealing his identity.
Branded as the face of modern day terror in the hinterland, Yasin gained cult status in the so-called home-grown terror network in the country after 2006 train bombings in Mumbai. He is the mastermind of scores of terror strikes in which hundreds of innocent lives were lost in the last few years.
Yasin is one of the several cases where well-educated youths were radicalised and took to terror activities. He was radicalised at the young age of 21 by IM co-founder Amir Reza Khan and was made the overall in-charge of logistics and arrangements for the outfit. Educated from AnjumanHami-e-Muslimeen school, the 1983-born was introduced to other members of the IM as a trained engineer and grew as an explosives expert.
Unani medicine practitioner-turned-Islamist Iqbal Ismail Shahbandri, along with his brother Riyaz Bhatkal, alias Ismail Shahbandri, now believed to be hiding in Karachi, are understood to be his mentors in joining IM, a group which was formed mainly by the disgruntled members of SIMI who believed in violent jehad.
They said Bhatkal's questioning will reveal the whereabouts and modus operandi of other wanted IM terrorists and insights into the active modules and sleeper cells of the outfit.
The IM was created and patronised by the lashkar-e-Tayyaba and ISI and most of its leaders are former activists of banned SIMI. The IM was designated a terror group by the Centre under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in June, 2010. In 2011, the US declared it as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation.
Yasin and Akhtar will be flown to Delhi on Friday in a special plane and formally handed over to NIA for questioning.
“Yasin Bhatkal was traced along the Bihar-Nepal border last night by our intelligence agencies. He is under the custody of the Bihar Police and his interrogation is going on,” Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told the media outside Parliament House.
Yasin hit the headlines after the 2008 Delhi serial blasts in which 30 people were killed. He is suspected to be the mastermind of these five blasts.
During the probe, his role was traced back to 2004 for allegedly distributing explosive material from Karnataka. He is also suspected to have played an active role in the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts that left 187 people dead.
Yasin, who hails from Bhatkal village of Udupi district in north Karnataka, is wanted in a string of terror attacks in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Bangalore, Pune, Delhi and Hyderabad. Following his arrest, various police forces have sought his custody to probe his role in terror cases in the respective States.
Yasin, who is also wanted in the German Bakery blast in Pune on February 13, 2010 that left 17 dead, formed IM with his brother Riaz and associates Riyaz Shahbandri, Abdul Subhan Qureshi, Sadiq Israr Sheikh and gangster-turned terrorist Amir Reza Khan.
Yasin, alias Mohammad Zarar Ahmed Siddhibappa, along with three aides Tahaseen Akhtar Wasim Aktar Shaikh (23), Asadulla Akhtar (26) and Waqas alias Ahmed (26), was allegedly behind three coordinated bomb explosions at Opera House, Zaveri Bazaar and Dadar West in Mumbai on July 13, 2011 that left 27 dead and 130 injured.
Bhatkal is also wanted in connection with the explosion outside the Delhi High Court on September 7, 2011 in which 12 persons were killed in 2010.
Yasin was spotted on CCTV minutes ahead of the German bakery blast in Pune as also in Hyderabad earlier this year.
He gave the agencies slip at least twice. Yasin was detained in Kolkata and Mumbai from where he managed to get released by concealing his identity.
Branded as the face of modern day terror in the hinterland, Yasin gained cult status in the so-called home-grown terror network in the country after 2006 train bombings in Mumbai. He is the mastermind of scores of terror strikes in which hundreds of innocent lives were lost in the last few years.
Yasin is one of the several cases where well-educated youths were radicalised and took to terror activities. He was radicalised at the young age of 21 by IM co-founder Amir Reza Khan and was made the overall in-charge of logistics and arrangements for the outfit.
Educated from AnjumanHami-e-Muslimeen school, the 1983-born was introduced to other members of the IM as a trained engineer and grew as an explosives expert.
Unani medicine practitioner-turned-Islamist Iqbal Ismail Shahbandri, along with his brother Riyaz Bhatkal, alias Ismail Shahbandri, now believed to be hiding in Karachi, are understood to be his mentors in joining IM, a group which was formed mainly by the disgruntled members of SIMI who believed in violent jehad.