After a good many twists and turns, the mystery surrounding the M Chinnaswamy Stadium twin blasts is finally solved. The perpetrators: Indian Mujahideen (IM). The reason: IM was miffed because Pakistani cricketers were left out of the Indian Premier League.
Six terrorists owing allegiance to IM who were arrested recently have reportedly confessed that they were behind the blasts at the stadium when an IPL match was about to begin on April 17, 2010.
A senior police officer told DNA that interrogation revealed that Iqbal Bhatkal had ordered the IM members to attack cricket stadiums in India where IPL matches were being held. Iqbal passed the order in Lahore in 2010.
Delhi Police picked up the terrorists from various parts of the country recently. During interrogation, they confessed to their involvement in various terror activities in the country — one of them being the twin blasts in Bangalore. The Central Crime Branch (CCB) police of Bangalore rushed to Delhi on December 1 upon learning this. The team returned on Monday after gathering information about the blasts from Delhi Police.
Interrogation of the terrorists revealed that seven persons were involved in the blasts outside M Chinnaswamy stadium. Four were involved in executing the blast while the others helped them. The four who have been accused of executing the blast have been identified as: Ahmad Siddi Bappa alias Yaseen Ahmad, 35 of Bhatkal, popularly known as Yaseen Bhatkal; Mohahmed Qateel Siddiqi, 27, of Darbhanga, Bihar; Gayur Ahmad Jamali, 21, of Madhubani, Bihar; and Farooq, also a native of Darbhanga, Bihar.
The three who were involved in the blasts indirectly are: Ashwaq alias Mousin Chowdari; Kabeer alias Iqbal Bhatkal; and his brother Shahid alias Riyaz Bhatkal.
Police arrested Qateel and Jamali on November 30. Farooq was nabbed on December 6. The police said Yaseen Bhatkal and Qateel had planted the explosives around the stadium on the night of April 16.
Hatched plan in Tumkur
The CCB team — after collecting information about the terrorists' interrogation from Delhi Police — visited Tumkur on Tuesday, where the terrorists had stayed days before executing the blast. The police said Yaseen Bhatkal and the other three who executed the blast stayed in Kyathasandra in Tumkur, near a private engineering and polytechnic college.
A senior police officer said the four terrorists stayed in a rented house for 10 days to give shape to their plans. They procured the explosives from Bihar. After assembling them, they planted the explosives around the stadium a day before the IPL match. They then fled from Bangalore as well as from Tumkur.
No clue about locals’ role
The police said, as of now, they do not have any clue about the involvement of locals in the blast. However, the police are not ruling out that some of the locals may have abetted the blast. Investigation in this regard is on, a senior police officer said.
Currently, the CCB team is trying to find out how the terrorists managed to secure the house on rent. The police are trying to discover more such information about their activities in Tumkur.
The police officer said they would bring Qateel, Jamal and Farooq to the city for investigation after the court grants permission to the police in this regard. The officer said this would take more than 15 days and only after that the police would be able to say if the locals had a role to play in abetting the blasts.
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