Bhatkal re-emerges as the finishing school of terror
All is clearly not well on the Karnataka coast. Especially with the port town of Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada district once again showing up on the terror radar. The town attained notoriety for having left an imprint in the world of jihadi terror thanks to the exploits of the Bhatkal brothers - Yasin and Riyaz. Now if the claims of the Bangalore police are anything to go by, the Bhatkal legacy lives on through more foot soldiers.
Four men arrested last week have a Bhatkal connection, sending a shiver down the khaki spine. Interestingly, this Indian Mujahideen module was put under watch after a intel tip-off from the Andhra Pradesh police. After the Church street blast in Bangalore on December 28, the police moved in for the kill, presuming the module's hand in the blast. While it has not been to establish a link between the two, it unearthed in the bargain, the module's explosive CV.
The kingpin according to the cops, is Dr Syed Ismail Afaque, a homeopath doctor who practices both in Bhatkal and Bangalore. Ideologically part of the Indian Mujahideen since 2004, he received training in assembling a bomb in 2011 in Pakistan. Police sources claim he used the cover of visiting his in-laws in Karachi, to meet his handlers across the LoC. He is allegedly the person who supplied explosives to Indian Mujahideen operative Asadullah Akhtar alias Haddi and Pakistani national Waqas alias Hasan (both now arrested) to carry out the twin blasts in Hyderabad's Dilsukhnagar area in February 2013.
The police claim this module procured and supplied explosives, using hawala channels to transfer money. Afaque procured the explosives from another accused, Saddam Hussein, who arranged it for a price. Hussein is reportedly not ideologically indoctrinated to the same extent as Afaque and has a business-like approach to terror, almost like a paid mercenary.
That Dr Afaque was singing like a canary during the police interrogation was obvious when based on his information, the police picked up Riyaz Sayeedi on Saturday night when he was about to board a flight to Dubai from Mangalore's Bajpe airport. But even as there is hope that the arrest of the four men will help break the backbone of terror in this part of Karnataka, that may not happen. That is because the IM ensures each module operates independently of the other. One is not aware of the existence of the other modules.
The fact that these sleeper cells managed to operate, keeping their head down, is obvious from the reaction of their families. They insist that they have been arrested only because of their postal address. Noor-ul-Nisa, Dr Afaque's mother asks if travelling to the home of his in-laws in Pakistan is a crime. Riyaz's sister Nafeesa says he works for a hardware company in Dubai. She adds the police found nothing at their home, which the cops corroborate.
Cops in Karnataka believe both IM and SIMI modules are in different stages of activity or inertia and that their targets would be towns in Maharashtra, Goa, Hubli and Mangalore. What the arrests have done is to bring the heat back to the investigation trail that had gone cold, with the sleuths unable to establish how the explosives were sourced. Now with Afaque's arrest, the police believes they are in a position to connect the dots.