A special court today allowed the plea of NIA Hyderabad seeking three days transit remand of suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) operatives Tehsin Akhtar and Zia-Ur-Rahman alias Waqas, wanted for their alleged roles in the Dilsukhnagar twin blasts in February last year.
Tehsin and Waqas were produced before District Judge I S Mehta after expiry of their police custody in connection with a separate case lodged by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against the IM operatives for their alleged conspiracy to carry out terror strikes across the country. NIA moved a plea requesting the court to send both the accused to judicial custody saying that their probe in the case was going on.
NIA Hyderabad, however, moved a separate plea before the court seeking three days transit remand of both the accused to produce them before the special court in Nampally in Hyderabad in connection with February 21, 2013 Dilsukhnagar twin blasts that had claimed 16 lives. "Both the accused are allowed to be taken to NIA special court, Nampally, Hyderabad and both accused persons are given on three days transit remand to M Venkatadri, Dy.SP, NIA, Hyderabad and he is directed to produce them before the said court and thereafter he is further directed to produce both the accused persons before this court after completion of investigation...," the court said.
Advocate Akram Khan, who appeared for both the accused, opposed NIA Hyderabad's plea saying there was no evidence to connect Tehsin and Waqas with the Dilsukhnagar blasts case. Khan also alleged that the investigating agency was trying to create evidence against the accused by forcing them to make confessional statements. The court also kept pending the plea of ATS Mumbai seeking custody of Tehsin and Waqas in connection with various cases lodged against them there.
NIA had earlier claimed before the court that Tehsin and Waqas have "exclusive knowledge" about the plans of IM to carry out terror attacks in the country in future. It had also said that IM Indian chief Yasin Bhatkal, his aide Asadullah Akhtar and other top operatives of the banned terror outfit were in touch with Tehsin and Waqas.
NIA had also said that they both had personally participated in various bomb blasts on the instructions of Pakistan-based handlers, Riyaz Bhatkal and Iqbal Bhatkal, co-founders of the IM who are absconding.
Tehsin and Waqas, along with other alleged IM operatives, Mohd Maroof, Wakar Azhar and Mohd Saqib Ansari, were arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police in March this year.
Maroof, Azhar and Ansari were arrested in connection with an illegal arms factory case here in which a supplementary charge sheet was recently filed against arrested accused Yasin Bhatkal and Asadullah Akhtar. Tehsin was arrested on March 25 near Indo-Nepal border in Darjeeling district of West Bengal while Waqas was arrested outside Ajmer Railway Station on March 22.
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