ndian Mujahideen’s Pakistan-based founder Riyaz Bhatkal had suggested adopting tactics used in the 2013 Maoist strike in Chhattisgarh on Congress leaders for eliminating politicians, the NIA has told a Delhi court. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) said this in its supplementary charge sheet filed before a special court which on Thursday took cognisance of the final report filed against 20 suspected IM men and fixed the case for hearing on November 3.
“Accused A-10 (Riyaz Bhatkal who is absconding) has clearly stated about his wish of repeating blasts in Mumbai to teach a lesson to police. Investigation has established that accused A-10 appreciated Maoist act of killing Congress leaders and postulated that IM should also do such activity like killing political leaders,” NIA said in the charge sheet.
Maoists had last year attacked the Congress cavalcade in Chhattisgarh in which 27 people, including the party’s top leaders, were killed. The charge sheet further said that absconding IM member Mirza Shadab Beg had “allied” with top terror group al Qaeda for exploring the availability of fidayeen attack in India. “The accused A-16 (Beg) allied with the al Qaeda and was exploring the availability of fidayeen i.e. suicide attacker from the al Qaeda for terrorist act in India. The accused formed a sub-group of IM operatives which allied with other absconding jihadi terrorists from different states of India who had taken shelter in Pakistan, for the furtherance of terrorist activities within India,” it said. It also claimed Beg had travelled to bordering areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan for meeting the operatives of international terrorist organisations like the al Qaeda and the Taliban. The NIA has named suspected top IM men Riyaz Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal, Tahseen Akhtar, Ariz Khan, Md Sajid, Shahnawaz Alam, Beg, Amir Reza Khan, Md Khalid, Mohsin Choudhary, Haider Ali, Md Saleem Ishaqui and Afif Jailani as accused in the case. Besides them, alleged IM men Abu Rashid, Zia-ur-Rehman, Abdul Khadir Sultan Armar, Md Shafi Armar, Md Hussain Farhan, Md Rashid and Anwar Hussain were also named in the charge sheet by the NIA.
It, however, did not find enough evidence to charge sheet suspected SIMI operative Abu Faisal in the case. “However, sufficient prosecutable evidence establishing the role of the aforesaid accused person (Abu Faisal) in the instant case of conspiracy of IM could not be obtained,” it said. Out of the 20 accused named in the charge sheet by NIA, 17 have not been arrested yet while three others, Tehsin Akhtar, Haidar Ali and Zia-ur-Rehman, are in judicial custody in connection with the case relating to a larger conspiracy of the IM to carry out terror activities across the country. All these accused have been chargesheeted for the offences under various sections of IPC, including 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 121 (waging war against the country), 121-A (conspiracy to wage war) and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. NIA is probing the alleged roles of 33 suspected IM men in the case out of which 29 have been chargesheeted by it.
