Yasin in Karnataka pol­ice custody, will be brought to Bangalore today

New Delhi: A special NIA court on Friday handed over the custody of Indian Mujahideen (IM) co-founder Yasin Bhatkal to the Karnataka pol­ice till January 28. The police will interrogate him on his involvement in the blasts at the Chinnaswamy St­ad­i­um in Bangalore in April 2010. Bhatkal is likely to be brought to the city on Saturday.

District Judge I.S. Mehta allowed the appl­ication by the Kar­nataka police, seeking Bhatkal’s custody. The police had infor­med the court about a magisterial court in Bangalore having iss­ued a production warrant against the 30-year-old Bhatkal in connection with the blasts case in which other suspects of the banned IM, including one of its co-founders, Riyaz Bhat­kal, and Fasih Meh­mood, are accused.

Me­h­­mood has been arrested. Fift­e­en people, inc­luding some secu­rity personnel, we­re injured in the low-intensity bla­sts at Chinnas­wamy Sta­dium on Ap­ril 17, 2010, hours before an IPL match between Royal Challe­ngers and Mu­mbai Ind­ians.

During the proceedings, Tihar Jail auth­orities submitted their report on the plea filed by Bhatkal and his aide Asadullah Akhtar in which they have claimed there was a threat to their lives inside the high-security prison.

Both accused were kept in judicial custody in Tihar Jail in connection with various terror attack ca­ses. In the report, the superintendent of Tih­ar Jail No. 4, where Bhatkal and Akhtar were lodged, said, “A detailed inquiry was conducted and it is reve­aled that the accu­sed had never brought the matter before jail authorities regarding any threats that they would be killed in the jail.” The jail superintendent added that, “Both the accused are lodged in the high-risk ward with special security deployed there round the clock.”

Bhatkal and Akhtar, in their plea, had cla­imed that the Tihar Jail superintendent ha­d “threatened” that th­ey would be killed and alleged that the “attitude and behaviour” of prison authorities towards them had been abusive.

The NIA’s Hyderabad unit had earlier taken Bhatkal and Akhtar to Hyderabad in connection with the Dilsu­khnagar blasts after their arrest last year on September 21 and September 17. The blasts in Hyderabad had claimed 16 lives. The accused duo was arrested by NIA from the Indo-Nepal border on the night of August 28 last year.

Bhatkal, who hails from Bhatkal village in Udupi district, was allegedly involved in a string of terror att­acks in Ahme­dab­ad, Surat, Bangalore, Pu­ne, Delhi and Hyde­r­abad, the NIA had said. Bhatkal, who was earlier associated with the banned Stud­ents Islamic Move­ment of India (SIMI), is alleged to have hatched a conspiracy with others to wage a war against India.