Bangalore:
In a hush-hush operation, the 11 men arrested in Karnataka for alleged terror links were produced before a magistrate last night and sent to 14 days police custody. The Bangalore police will begin questioning these arrested persons and sources indicate that at least four persons will be taken to Hubli for further investigation. It was from the residence of one of the accused in Hubli in North Karnataka that an imported 7.65mm weapon was seized. Along with it, several documents, some bullets and CDs with some data was recovered by the police.
All 11 persons are suspected to have links with terror groups like the HUJI and Lashkar and were plotting to assassinate some politicians, journalists and some representatives of hindu groups according to the police.
However, while the police will begin questioning, it seems that it has some answering to do too. Many among those arrested are highly educated youth employed in respectable jobs in different parts of the state.
While the police is on the job to find evidence to prove their claim, the families of the accused allege it is a case of mistaken identity.
On Wednesday night the police arrested 26-year-old Jaffer Iqbal from Hubli allegedly because he works for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Incidentally Jaffer is an MBBS student who just got married two months ago.
Rafeeq Ahmed, can't make sense of his son's arrest in a terror related case. A forest conservator himself says his third son Jaffer is the third doctor in his family.
"My son got married two months ago, he and his wife were continuously preparing for higher studies. They had no time to watch TV even; they kept studying and studying. I appeal to the government of Karnataka to please expedite this case through fast track courts so that my son's innocence is proved. Otherwise all the effort taken by the family to educate the children so much will be in vain" he says.
Incidentally, Jaffer's home is a stone's throw away from the Karnataka chief minister Jagdish Shettar's home in Hubli.
Among those arrested is M Siddiqui, a reporter for the last 4 years in Bangalore. Holder of a BA degree from Dharwad in North Karnataka, he was a reporter with a popular English daily in Bangalore.
He is termed as the mastermind of a group which was planning assassinations. Police sources say, the journalist's cell phone recordings for the last three months indicate that he made several phone calls to the Saudi Arabia and was working as per instructions by a team there.
According to the police, his journalistic contacts helped him know the whereabouts of his 'targets'. The police say he made phone calls to all the other 10 arrested men.
Also in police custody is a software programmer who worked for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
26-year-old Aijaz Mirza, was working in the Airborne Early Warning System Control wing of the DRDO for the last 6 months.
In a press statement, the DRDO clarified saying, "It is intimated that Mr. Aijaz Ahmed Mirza had been placed as Junior Research Fellow (JRF) for the past few months, at Centre for Air Borne Systems (CABS), a DRDO laboratory. Verification of his antecedents as well as police verification was conducted in respect of Mr. Aijaz Ahmed Mirza in the process of his placement on the temporary position of Junior Research Fellow. He was not involved in any sensitive work and as such no sensitive/classified information has been compromised. Disciplinary action as per GOI rules is being taken."
The Bangalore police commissioner Jotiprakash Mirji had said yesterday that 'a big catastrophe had been averted'. But the police is going to have to quickly find evidence to support these allegations against the accused.