NEW DELHI, Mar 5:
Non-bailable warrants (NBWs) were today issued by a Delhi court against Indian Mujahideen founder Riyaz Bhatkal and nine other operatives of the banned outfit in connection with the February 21 Hyderabad twin blasts which claimed 16 lives.
During in-chamber hearing, District Judge I S Mehta issued the NBWs against Pakistan-based Riyaz Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal, Mohsim Chaudhary, Amir Reza Khan, Dr Shahnawaz Alam, Asadullah Akhtar, Ariz Khan, Mohd Khalid, Mirza Shadaab Beg and Mohd Sajid, who all are alleged IM operatives.
During the hearing, two alleged IM operatives Syed Maqbool and Imran Khan were produced before the special NIA court after expiry of their five-day NIA custody and it remanded them to judicial custody till March 13.
The NIA told the court that Maqbool and Imran were taken to Hyderabad and they have revealed some important facts about the blasts, court sources said.
According to the sources, the NIA told the judge that the conspiracy behind the Hyderabad blasts was hatched by the IM modules and the agency also moved an application for issuance of production warrant against alleged IM operative Obaie-Ur-Rehman who is currently lodged in a Bangalore jail.
The court allowed the NIA’s plea saying “let production warrant of the accused Obaie-Ur-Rehman be issued through Superintendent, Central Jail, Bangalore for March 13.”
According to the NIA, the blasts took place in Hyderabad on the alleged instructions of Riyaz Bhatkal.
Maqbool and Imran, who were lodged in Tihar Jail after their arrest by Delhi police in the August 2012 Pune blast case, were handed over to NIA for their custodial interrogation on February 28 by the court after the agency alleged that they had recced Hyderabad’s Dilsukhnagar area, where the blasts occurred, last July.
The blasts in Hyderabad were triggered by IEDs planted near Konark and Venkatadiri theatres in Dilsukhnagar area.
The NIA had said that they required the custody of the duo to take them to Hyderabad and interrogate them for more clues about the blasts as the ongoing probe suggests that an IM module was behind it.
It had said that the duo’s interrogation would help in unearthing the exact plan envisaged by Bhatkal. (PTI)
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