Tausif Khan also misrepresented teachings of Islam "in a wrong way", said police. (PTI)
Tausif Khan, the 35-year-old engineer arrested for plotting the serial blasts in Gujarat's Ahmedabad city in 2008, was caught after a cyber cafe owner reported him for a social media post, a top Bihar police officer said on Thursday. The cyber cafe owner in Gaya town, 100 km from state capital Patna, had spotted the prime suspect uploading what he felt was an "objectionable' post and alerted the police.
Nine years ago, 16 explosions within a span of 70 minutes had killed 56 people in Ahmedabad on 26 July.
SK Singhal, a top Bihar police officer at Patna, said Tausif Khan was suspected to be the mastermind of the serial blasts.
Trained as an electronics engineer from DY Patil University in Maharashtra's Pune, Tausif Khan had been on the run since then. It turns out that he had taken up a teaching job in a local school in Gaya's Shahdeo Khap village. He taught maths and science and was known in the area as 'Atiq Sir'.
On the side, Tausif also misrepresented teachings of Islam "in a wrong way" to arouse anti-national feelings among his students, said Bihar police officer Alok Kumar Singh, adding that he had been visiting Gaya for eight years.
Mr Singh said the cyber café owner Anurag Basu noticed Tausif and his associate Sanaah Khan uploading "some objectionable posts" on social media and called the local police, according to news agency Press Trust of India. He was initially questioned about the posts and his role in the blasts emerged much later.
Sunil Kumar Jha, chief of Bihar's anti-terror squad said the suspects were being questioned by officers from central intelligence agencies. He added the local policemen and the cyber café owner would be rewarded for the crucial role that they played in the case.
Mr Singhal said Tausif and Sanaah culled information on ISIS from the internet and emailed some parts to a few parliamentarians, among others.
During interrogation, Tausif has also identified more than a dozen youths associated with him, Mr Singh said.
(With inputs from PTI)