By IANS
Bangalore : The Karnataka police are looking for at least 12 techies in the city and other parts of the state believed to be linked to the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
The police have, however, denied reports in local media that two suicide bombers have sneaked into the city via Nepal. A section of the media said the information was provided to the Bangalore police by their counterparts in Hyderabad.
“We have no such information,” Bangalore City Police Commissioner Neelam Achutha Rao told reporters Tuesday.
Information about the links of several techies with the SIMI was provided by Yahya Khan alias Kammukutty, a software engineer from Kerala arrested last Thursday for suspected involvement with terror groups and the SIMI.
The police declined to give the number of people named by Yahya Khan or details about them. Police sources, however, said they were looking for about 12 techies.
Meanwhile, the police have received court permission to subject Yahya Khan, 32, to polygraphy test, brain mapping and narco-analysis to extract further information about his activities and his associates.
One of his associates, Syed Sameer, an aluminium contractor who is said to be involved in the Surat riots and was out on bail, was arrested from Guruppana Palya, a thickly populated area in Bangalore, Monday night. Sameer was reporting to the police every month as required by his bail condition but failed to do so in February.
He was seen with Yahya Khan on whom police were keeping a watch for several months on information that he headed the SIMI in Karnataka till it was banned.
Yahya hails from Mukkom, 30 km east of Kozhikode. A computer and some “jihadi” literature were seized from his house in Guruppana Palya, which has substantial Muslim population. Sameer also resided in the same area.
Guruppana Palya is one of the many localities along the Bannerghatta Road where leading IT companies like IBM, Oracle and Honeywell have offices. The campus of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, is just three km away.
According to the police, Yahya Khan came to Bangalore about eight years back and first worked with Tata Infotech and later with GE, from where he was sacked because of his suspicious behaviour. Since then, he was running a software business from his residence.
Yahya, married with three children, was arrested on the basis of the information provided by another terror suspect, Mohammed Asif, a final year medical student detained last month in the north Karnataka town of Hubli.
Asif is also suspected to have links with the SIMI, which officials say was active in the Guruppana Palya area where it had an office till it was banned.
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.
Abubacker and Nasir were arrested in early January from Honnali in the central Karnataka district of Davangere. Their interrogation led to Asif being picked up.
All three have been subjected to narco-analysis, polygraph and brain mapping tests.