The Central Crime Branch (CCB) detained five alleged terrorists in Bengaluru today on suspicion of plotting a terror attack in the capital of Karnataka. Although the man’s current whereabouts are unclear, the police think that Junaid, a suspect from Bengaluru’s RT Nagar neighbourhood, lives abroad and is the brains behind distributing explosives and weapons to the five people detained.
The police are searching for Junaid. Suhail, Omar, Zahid, Mudasir, and Faisal, five people in detention who are all from Bengaluru and are between the ages of 25 and 35, were previously detained in 2017 and held for 18 months in connection with a murder case before being freed in 2019. The CCB has also seized the suspects’ possession of explosive materials. They also had swords and cannons on them.
During questioning, the suspects admitted to having contact with T Nazeer, a terror suspect now being held in Bengaluru Central Jail (Parapanna Agrahara). Dayanand B, the police commissioner in Bengaluru, claims that Nazeer radicalized the five.
In a 2017 murder investigation, the accused and another individual from abroad were involved. According to Mr. Dayanand, the one from abroad gave them the weaponry they needed to commit acts of terrorism. The top police officer noted that to find Junaid, the Bengaluru Police are working with national organizations. There are worries that these prisons could be a haven for terrorists due to the reported radicalization of inmates in Karnataka.
In the Bengaluru bombing case from 2008, Nazeer is allegedly responsible. Another instance involves Mohammad Shariq, the main suspect in the Mangaluru cooker explosion case from a year ago, who is thought to have been radicalized in Belagavi prison by another terror suspect who was apprehended in connection with the Hyderabad bomb blast case.
