Bomb courier holds key to plot

There’s some hope at last that the loose ends in the serial blasts that rocked Bangalore on July 25, 2008 will soon be tied up as the city police on Saturday began interrogating the prime accused, Tadiyandavida Nasir alias Ummer Haji alias Ummer (32), and his close aide, Shafaz alias Shafaz Samsuddin (28).

Lashkar-e-Toiba activists Nasir and Shafaz, who were brought to the city on Friday night from Shillong, were on Saturday morning produced before the first additional chief metropolitan magistrate, who remanded the duo to police custody till December 18.
The police are hopeful of a breakthrough as Nasir, a vital link in the blasts plot, had remained elusive. Nasir is said to have been instrumental in arranging the logistics in the heinous act that left one person dead and eight injured.

He had spent Rs25,000 to hire a Scorpio car from Ernakulam to come to Bangalore a week before the serial blasts. “En route to Bangalore, he had stayed at Palghat to collect the improvised explosive devices and a timer from his contacts,” said police sources.
Police commissioner Shankar M Bidari said that the police custody was sought to get more information on the blasts plot and to probe the involvement of Nasir’s associates in the act.

Bidari said the police had chargesheeted both Nasir and Shafaz first in May and then again a month later. Twelve suspects have been arrested, while 10 others, including four foreign nationals, are absconding. Bidari said the police suspected Nasir and Shafaz’s involvement in Surat serial blast cases too. The city police have alerted Gujarat police in this regard.

The sources suspected Nasir to be involved in blasts at several other places. It’s suspected that he executed the logistics for the perpetrators. “He is believed to have been involved in training sessions for the Indian Mujahiddeen. He was suspected to have imparted training to cadre at several places in Karnataka and Hyderabad also.”

“We will be looking into the issue of funding to these LeT operatives and others in Kerala. They had received huge amounts from West Asian nations through illegal channels and we have a suspicion that several highly-placed personalities were involved in the funding,” another officer said.

Bidari said that the nine cases pertaining to the serial blasts have now been clubbed into three in accordance with Section 219 of the CrPC. The section says that when a person is accused of more than one offence of the same kind, all committed within the space of 12 months from the first of such offences, whether in respect of the same person or not, he or she may be charged with a maximum of three offences and face one trial for the same.