Techie head of Qaeda module held in city

Twenty-three-year-old Suleiman had done B Tech in an engineering college in Erode, an NIA official said, adding he had allegedly confessed to planting a bomb in the Mysuru court. He had also allegedly participated in other illegal activities of the group and will be produced before the 49th Additional City Civil and Sessions Court in Bengaluru, the official said.      

According to an NIA release, Suleiman, a native of Madurai who was residing and working in a software firm here, was the main leader of the terrorist gang. He was arrested by a team of NIA officials led by Superintendent of Police, NIA L R Kumar on Monday. Earlier NIA officials said the suspects, part of a group that called itself ‘The Base Movement of al-Qaeda’, were former members of alUmmah, an organisation TN had banned in 1998. 

Meanwhile, the four terrorists, who were arrested by National Investigation Agency (NIA), were produced before the Magistrate Court at Melur, on Tuesday. The court had issued transit order and had directed the NIA to produce them at the NIA Special Court at Bengaluru by Dec 1.  The incident took place on Monday when a team of NIA officials led by SP Prathibha Ambedkar arrested three suspected terrorists, Ayub Khan, Abbas Ali and Kareem, from different areas at Madurai and took them for investigation at ITBP office at Idayapatti near Madurai. 

On Tuesday one more suspected terrorist Samsudeen was arrested by NIA and all four were produced at the court. Arjun, PP, appeared for NIA, and argued that all the four were linked to Mysore Court bomb blast case. The incident was a serious one and hence was transferred to NIA. The case at present is being taken up by NIA and is being heard at Special Court at Bengaluru. But the Defence Council, Jinnah, who had appeared for the four suspected terrorists, argued that the NIA had arrested all four on Sunday night and had produced only on Tuesday. 

This amounts to illegal detention and apart from that, all four were physically tortured. Hence they should not be sent to Bengaluru along with NIA. But Arjun argued that though they were picked up in their houses in the midnight of Sunday they were interrogated and after they had confessed that they were involved in the terror incidents they were arrested only on Monday evening and there was no violation. Apart from that they also demanded just transit order as they had to produce the accused at NIA Court at Bengaluru where the case is being heard. Judge Selvakumar, then asked the four accused whether they had any injuries for which the four accused said no. 

Then in the argument Jinnah claimed that the four were produced only after Habeas Corpus was filed by parents of one of the four arrested persons and only then NIA had produced them in the Court. Meanwhile Jamaath sources claimed that three more persons were also nabbed by NIA and their condition had not yet been known.