Ever since arrested LeT agents Nasir and Shamsuddin were brought to the city in connection with the Bangalore blasts, police have been unearthing suspects from the country.
Tadiyantavide Nasir, the prime accused in the Bangalore serial blasts, was in close contact with LeT operative Tahawwuur Hussain Rana (48), a Canadian immigration consultant of Pakistani origin.
Rana is currently in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
in the US, along with another Lashkar-e-Taiba associate, David Coleman Headley alias Dawood Gilani.
It was learnt that besides Nasir, his associate Marakkarkandi Taslima Manzil KP Saabir alias Ayub (31), from Kannur in Kerala, was also in close contact with Rana.
“However, it was Saabir who spent more time with Rana. They even shared a hotel room in Iran and the FBI is believed to have secured the hotel register as evidence. Both Nasir and Saabir were experts at recruiting and initiating people from Kerala and other states into the Indian Mujahiddin (IM). Perhaps, Rana’s expertise in recruitment had helped them both,” sources said.
Sources also confirmed that four LeT activists, shot dead while trying to exfiltrate from Kupwara to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, were escorted to the border by Saabir. “Saabir and Nasir held multiple passports. Saabir held a passport issued in the name of CAM Bashir of Aluva in Kerala to escape from the country. Though he was believed to be in Saudi Arabia six months ago, Saabir now seems to be holed up somewhere in the UAE,” a source said.
Saabir is also believed to be the brains behind the Delhi blasts. Intelligence Bureau sources added that Nasir and Saabir were involved in the Varanasi blasts, both at Sankat Mochan temple and the Cantonment railway station in the holy city.
However, sources said that there are several loose ends in probe so far, which will be cleared only when all the other suspects, including fund raiser Riaz Bhatkal, are arrested. The investigators are certain that Saabir and Nasir ordered terror strikes in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka.
The twin blasts at Chennapatna, which followed the serial blasts in the city, were also carried out on their orders.
Meanwhile, Nasir’s interrogation led to the arrest of Soofia Mahdhani, wife of the chairman of Kerala’s People’s Democratic Party, on Thursday. She has been accused of coordinating with Nasir and others to torch a bus belonging to the Tamil Nadu
government at Kalamasseri in Kerala in September 2005.
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