By A. Mirsab, TwoCircles.net,
Mangalore (Karnataka): It was almost a déjà vu situation for the sleepy coastal town of Bhatkal in north Karnataka when three native young men were arrested by police and the NIA for their alleged involvement in what the agencies described as terror activities across the country.
The Central Crime Branch of the Bengaluru police and the National Investigation Agency (NIA), in a coordinated raid on January 8, arrested Syed Ismail Aafaque, 34, Saddam Hussein, 35, and Abdus Sabbuur, 24. Police claimed they are members of the banned Indian Mujahidin (IM) and are in regular touch with the members of other banned organisations and the IM. The detention of these three youth from Bhatkal immediately triggered anxiety amongst the residents, especially their family members.
Investigation team
Bhatkal came to limelight, unfortunately for wrong reasons, in recent times after September 2008 when number of youth were arrested from different parts of India for their alleged connection with two brothers from Bhatkal, believed to be founders of IM. Although the brothers were absconding, their families were extensively questioned. The town also witnessed a large media contingent due to negative exposure.
Bhatkal residents underwent a similar exercise earlier this week when the trio was arrested, allegedly for their involvement in the December 28 blast at Bengaluru, in which a woman was killed and three others injured. Police, however, later claimed, the arrest was for their alleged involvement with IM.
Incidentally, the police claimed the trio was arrested at Bhatkal while their families claimed they were arrested from Bengaluru. Police claimed to have found substantial quantities of explosives (ammonium nitrate), detonators, electronic timer devices, digital circuits, circuit-making material, gas-based explosive material and fuel from a rented house at Bhatkal.
Syed Ismail Aafaque is a homeopath with four siblings, all engineers. His parents Syed Abdul Aleem, 75, and Noorunnissa, 62, have alleged that they were not informed earlier and that they came to know about his detention only through the media. As reported by regional media, he didn’t have a clinic instead visited patients’ homes as a family doctor. The district president of the Popular Front of India (PFI), he also played football.
Abdus Sabur, a final year MBA student at Anjuman College in Bhatkal, is Aafaque cousin (son of his mother’s sister). His family claimed he had gone to Bengaluru only on Wednesday, January 7, a day before he was arrested.
“Both of them (Aafaque and Sabur) left home at 10.45 am to attend an acupressure camp in Jayanagar. Their mobile phones were found to be switched off around noon. We got to know about the arrests only after the police commissioner’s press conference,” said Noorunnisa. Police, however, had claimed the trio was arrested from Bhatkal.
Police stationed outside the House raided in Bhatkal where recovery is made
Sabur’s father had a kidney disease and his mother had accompanied him to Kozhikode, Kerala, for treatment, his family said. Although the family owns a house in Bhatkal but Sabur stayed at a relative’s house since his parents were away.
Claiming that the house from where police claimed to have recovered explosives was locked since three months, a relative reportedly told the mediapersons, “Sabur is the only son of his parents and the house in Bhatkal at Tengina Gundi Cross at Madina Colony had been locked for the last three months.”
The house owner, Mohammad Hussein was admitted to a hospital in Calicut a week ago, the locals said and expressed surprise that the police broke open the house and checked it “without the accompaniment of anyone from the neighbourhood.”
Families of Aafaque and Sabur claim they do not know Hussain, the third arrested with this duo, while police claim Hussain to be a scrap merchant. Saddam’s wife Sayirabanu said her husband was innocent and had not committed any crime.
Meanwhile, there are reports of detention of some other people from Bhatkal for the purpose of investigation. Aseef Mohammad, another person from Bhatkal, who was picked up by Bengaluru police on January 8 itself, was released the next day after interrogation.
According to Aseef, after blindfolded him, police took him to an unknown destination where he was interrogated. The police questioned him about his connections with Saddam, who is in police custody. After interrogation he was brought back to Bhatkal and let off.
Bhatkal townsmen had planned a protest rally to express anger on the police action claiming such arrests may be a conspiracy of police to defame Bhatkal town as previously too Abdus Samad Siddibapa was arrested on terror charges but later fully acquitted. Tanzeem, a socio-political body of Muslims from Bhatkal, had also planned a bandh followed by a peaceful rally on Monday. But after the police authorities requested, the rally was called off.
Tanzeem, however, has accused the police of ‘planting’ the explosives in Saddam’s house. Tanzeem’s general secretary said the way in which investigation was carried out by NIA and Bengaluru Central Crime Branch police, is not at all satisfactory. “We do have full faith in the police officials. But the absence of any individual with the investigation team as a witness and taking away of the proof without showing it to the local media cannot be digested,” he added.
The house in Bhatkal raided by police
A town in lime light, again for wrong reasons
The sleepy serene Bhatkal was hardly known outside Karnataka before September 2008. Each family of Bhatkal, the coastal town in North of Karnataka, has at least one member working in Gulf countries. Except this, it was just like any other coastal town in Karnataka.
It was jolted out of its serendipity at the end of September 2008 after the sporadic arrests of Muslim youths from Pune, Azamgarh and Mangalore for their connection with IM and due to police’s claiming that the alleged founders of the IM – Shabandri brothers and Ahmed Siddibappa – were residents of Bhatkal. There was a massive lookout by investigative agencies and the town saw unprecedented media presence.
The family members of these absconding alleged IM founders were extensively questioned by various agencies and the locals had first time witnessed such large police presence in the town.
Two years later, it came under media focus again when Abdul Samad, younger brother of absconding Ahmed Siddibappa was arrested by Mumbai police for allegedly planting a bomb at the German Bakery in Pune in February 2010. He was later released after spending two months in Mumbai prison after his family presented proof of his presence in a wedding in the town at the very date and time of the German Bakery blasts.
The latest case of arrest of three youth has just opened the wounds that had taken long to heal, Bhatkal residents claim.
(Photos Courtesy: bhatkallys.com)
Related:
Three IM suspects arrested for Bengaluru blast