CHENNAI: Connecting a series of seemingly unconnected crimes, the National Investigation Agency said on Monday that two key suspects in the Bengaluru Rameshwaram Cafe blast had allegedly harboured two accused involved in the murder of SSI Wilson in 2020.

According to NIA, Thowfeek and Abdul Shameem had murdered SSI Wilson at Kaliyakavillai check-post on Kerala-Tamil Nadu border using a pistol provided by Mehaboob Pasha, who had formed Al-Hind Trust along with his family members in Gurupanapallaya, Bengaluru.

When they were on the run after the murder, it was Abdul Matheen Taha and Mussavir Hussain Shazib, the Bengaluru blast suspects, who gave them shelter, sources said.

Taha and Mussavir, both residents of Thirthahalli in Shivamogga district, were allegedly involved in a larger terror conspiracy of ISIS, and had been absconding until they were arrested on April 12. Tracking a throwaway lead of a discarded cap, the investigators had found that both of them were staying in Chennai just before their associate executed a blast at the Rameshwaram Cafe on March 1.

Giving details about the larger web, officials said Pasha, who gave the pistol that was used to murder SSI Wilson, was also responsible for passing on an online handler link to Khaja Mohideen, the self-styled head of ISIS module in Tamil Nadu. Mohideen had joined the Al Hind Trust along with his associates to promote ISIS’s terrorist activities in India, investigators said.

Moideen is also one of the main accused in the murder of a Hindu Munnani activist Suresh Kumar in Ambattur in 2014. He was allegedly planning to set up a base in Karnataka-Tamil Nadu forest and getting trained in dark web communication with foreign handlers. But after mysteriously disappearing from Tamil Nadu in December 2019 while out on bail, he was arrested in Delhi in January 2020.