By IANS
Bangalore : Yahya Khan alias Kammukutty, a software engineer from Kerala who was arrested for suspected links with terror groups and the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), was Saturday sent to police custody till March 6.
The 32-year-old Yahya, who was arrested Thursday evening, was produced before a magistrate in Hubli in northern Karnataka by the Corps of Detectives (CoD). The CoD are also interrogating three other terror suspects held in Karnataka earlier.
Yahya, who hails from Mukkom, 30 km east of Kozhikode in Kerala, was taken to Hubli as he was picked up following information provided by Mohammed Asif, a final year medical student in that town. A case against Asif has been registered in Hubli.
The CoD are searching for Syed Sameer, an aluminium contractor, on the basis of information provided by Yahya. Sameer’s place in Guruppana Palya, about 12 km from the city centre, was raided Friday but he was not found, police said.
Yahya also lived in Guruppana Palya from where he was arrested Thursday. A laptop, hard disc and some ‘jihadi’ literature were seized from his house, the police said.
Guruappana Palya, with a substantial Muslim populate, is one of the many localities along the Bannerghatta Road where leading IT companies like IBM, Oracle and Honeywell have offices. The Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore campus is also on Bannerghatta Road.
Yahya came to Bangalore about eight years back and first worked with TataInfotech and later at GE, from where he was sacked for downloading data he was not authorised to access, police said.
Since then he was running a software business from his residence. Police suspect he was the head of SIMI in Karnataka and had organised several camps, mainly in north Karnataka, to recruit people.
Asif is also suspected to have links with SIMI. Besides Asif, the police have detained Asadullah Abubacker, a first year student of ayurvedic medicine, and Mohammed Ghouse alias Riyazuddin Nasir, son of a cleric in Hyderabad.
All three have been subjected to narco-analysis, polygraph and brain mapping tests.
While there is no official word on the information the three provided during these tests, local media reports said they have confessed to planning strikes against well-known temples, IT companies, dams and airports.
The police have been searching a forest area on the border of Dharwad and Uttara Kannada districts for a hidden arms cache as Asif had reportedly confessed to terror training camps being organised there at the behest of the banned Lashkar-e-Toiba.