Dr Nayeem Siddiqui was picked up at the cantonment railway station when he disembarked from Karnataka Express on Sunday afternoon with his father, Abdul Mutalib Katagi.
Continuing their arrests in the foiled terror plot in the state, sleuths from the Central Crime Branch on Monday picked up a 26-year-old post-graduate student of medicine while he was returning to the city after securing admission to a PG course in Delhi.
Dr Nayeem Siddiqui was picked up at the cantonment railway station when he disembarked from Karnataka Express on Sunday afternoon with his father, Abdul Mutalib Katagi.
With Nayeem’s arrest, the total count of those arrested has gone up to 14.
A team of officials took Nayeem and his father to the CCB headquarters on the pretext of getting some details but sent back Katagi with a copy of an arrest warrant stating that his son had been arrested.
According to police, Nayeem —who had completed his MBBS from a Tumkur college — had moved to Bangalore for further studies.
Naeem had been staying as a paying guest in Asra Nursing Home, Kalasipalya area, for the past two years and was attending Dr Bhatia’s coaching classes in preparation for his MD course. He was also a regular at the Bangalore Medical College and Indian Medical Association library in the city. Police have confiscated Nayeem’s laptop and are probing his links with those arrested so far. Preliminary investigations have revealed that Nayeem was part of the module tasked with the job of recruiting youth and providing them with financial help.
However, Jamadar, one of the accused, reportedly told police that Nayeem was part of Mohammed Akram's group, which was assigned to kill a Hubli-based leader.
In his confession statement, Jamadar said that Akram, who had been brought from Nanded by Zakeer Ustaad, was heading the Hubli mission and had asked Udedulla, Waheed Hussain, Mehboob, Dr Jaffar, Raju alias Saadiq, Matiur Rahman and Dr Nayeem to assist him in executing the operations.
The group had been selected since most of them were familiar with Hubli and know the topography of the area well.
City police commissioner Jyothi Prakash Mirji said the accused, a native of Davangere, had been in touch with the accused in this case and was providing logistical and financial support to their activities.
It is also learnt that Nayeem was trying to recruit new people into their organisation.
But Nayeem's family denied police's version. The family said they were very poor and Nayeem's father — who repaired mobile phones — was busy raising funds for his son's studies. "We have even postponed the marriage of one of his sister as we decided to give all the money to him to complete his education. If Nayeem was a financier for a terror group, he would not have asked money from his parents for his daily needs," argued the family members.
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