Bengaluru: The NIA has arrested three persons, including a prison psychiatrist and a City Armed Reserve Policeman, during extensive searches in two districts, in connection with Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group's prison radicalisation case of 2003.
Searches were conducted in Bengaluru and Kolar district, that led to the arrest of Prisons Psychiatrist Nagaraj of Parappana Agrahara Prisons, CAR Assistant Sub-Inspector Chan Pasha and Anees Fathima, mother of an absconding accused.
During the searches, various digital devices, cash, gold and incriminating documents were seized from the houses of the arrested and other suspects. The three will be produced before the NIA court on Wednesday, while the NIA officials are on the look out for another suspect Sathish Gowda from Bhattarahalli in Kolar district, who had supplied SIM cards for mobile phones of the gang. His wife Prameela is being questioned on the whereabouts of Sathish Gowda.
As part of the conspiracy, Dr Nagaraj was smuggling mobile phones for the use of prison inmates, including Tadiyandaveed Naseer @ T Naseer, a life-time convict lodged in terror cases. One lady by name Pavithra used to help Dr Nagaraj in these activities. Apart from these two, the NIA officials also raided the house of Anees Fathima, whose son Junaid Ahmed is absconding in the same case and she was passing on information from Naseer to Junaid over raising funds and handing it over to Naseer in the prison. CAR ASI Chan Pasha was involved in passing on information to Naseer's associates over escorts to Naseer when he was being taken to prisons in 2022.
The tip off over the prison radicalisation came to light in 2022, when the Bengaluru CCB had arrested five persons, Mohammed Arshad Khan, Suhail, Faizal, Jahid Tabreze and Mudassir and recovered pistols, hand grenades and other arms and ammunitions. Another member of the gang Junaid gave a slip to the police and escaped. The case was handed over to the NIA.
During the investigation, the NIA realised that Naseer was building his own group inside the prison. He used to pick up convicts and slowly brain washed them to get into terror activities.His network was behind many bomb blasts in Karnataka, including the 2008 serial blast, Mangaluru Cooker blast, radical activities in Shivamogga and Rameshwara Cafe blast.NIA also claim that Naseer has direct links with the sleeper cells and was planning for a big terror activity in Bengaluru in near future.
