Hyderabad/Madurai/Chennai: The National Investigation Agency’s Hyderabad unit on Monday arrested six terror suspects of the Al-Qaeda-inspired group called ‘Base Movement’ for carrying out bomb blasts in court complexes across South India including in Chittoor and Nellore and for planning to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The leader of the Tamil Nadu-based group, identified as Dawood Suleman, 23, a resident of Chennai’s Thiruvanmiyur, is a software engineer with TCS Chennai.
He is currently being interrogated. The five other accused were identified as Abbas Ali, 27, of Ismalipuram; Mohammed Abdul Kareem, 25, of K. Pudur; Shamshum Karawa, Ayub Khan, 25, of GR Nagar; and Hafeez.
While three of them have been officially arrested, the NIA is interrogating the other three. The accused were arrested from Madurai and Chennai.
According to top sources in NIA, a pen drive found at the scene of the blast at the Nellore district court in AP contained a photograph of Mr Modi and a threat to target him. “Out of the five blasts, in two places they left pen drives in which they spoke about targeting Mr Modi,” said an official.
With the arrest of the terror group NIA along with Telangana police and Tamil Nadu police averted the next target of the group on February 9 in 2017 for which they have identified Mysuru Railway Court and Palakkad court in Kerala. All the accused are hailing from either Madurai or Chennai.
The expert bomb maker of the group has been identified as Abbas who runs a library in the name ‘Darul ilm’ at Madurai. Ayub Khan works as a public liaison officer for a hearing aid company. Shamshum Karawa Raja owns a chicken broiler shop at Kannimara Koil street in Madurai. The six accused were involved in bomb blasts in the parking lots in the Chitoor court in Andhra Pradesh and Kollam in Kerala and inside the court premises in Mysuru in Karnataka, Nellore in Andhra Pradesh and Malappuram in Kerala.
In Chitoor and Nellore blasts it was Abbas and Shamshum Karawa and Kareem who were involved.
The bomb making
The gang downloaded from the internet on how to make bombs using fire crackers and used it as explosive material. “They have purchased Diwali crackers on a large scale and taken out the explosive powder. That’s why the blasts are low intensity. Timers they have collected from those used in air conditioner machines and motors. NIA seized 6kgs of explosive substances from the houses of the accused.
The mission
The group has called themselves Base Movement, which is the meaning of Al-Qaeda. In all the letter pads they have used the picture of dreaded terrorist Osama Bin laden.
Investigation agencies said that their aim is to take revenge against the courts for convicting Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon to death punishment and also against alleged in action of courts in Alair police encounter (Nalgonda Telangana) where Vikaruddin and four others were killed in police encounter. Their aim is to create scare in the judiciary to prevent convictions of terror suspects. The group was founded on January 26, 2015.
The arrested persons will be produced before the local courts in Chennai and Madurai for seeking transit remand for taking them to NIA Special Court at Hyderabad where the Mysuru blast case was registered.
Meanwhile, the parents of the three youths who gathered in the district court on Monday evening told reporters that Abdul Kareem and Ayub Khan were good friends and both went to the DRO colony mosque on Sunday evening.
“As both didn’t return home still 10 pm, we called them on their mobile phone. They informed us that they will come home soon, but we learned that police have secured them through media,” said the parents. Khan got married only last week, his father said.
