Muslim body seeks police, NIA clarification on Bhatkal raid

Mangaluru, Jan 12: A social organisation run by Bhatkal Muslims has demanded that police and the NIA, who claimed to have seized explosives from a few suspects with terror links from Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada district, should come clean on certain issues, including why they did not take the local people into confidence before the raids.

The body, Majlis-e-Islah wa Tanzeem, said the local people should have been taken into confidence if the investigation team had knowledge that the explosives were hidden inside a house in the town before conducting the raids.

The contents of the bag recovered from the house were not revealed by the search officials and that the police party stayed inside the house for seven to eight hours also remained a mystery, the organisation said in a statement. The organisation was planning to submit a memorandum to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the matter, it said.

In simultaneous raids at Bengaluru and Bhatkal on January 8, police had arrested three alleged Indian Mujahideen operatives and also seized a huge cache of explosives from their houses.

The fourth suspected IM operator Riyaz Ahmed was arrested at the Mangaluru international airport on Saturday night before he was to board a flight to Dubai. Meanwhile, Khaja Sayeedi, father of Riyaz Ahmed said in a statement that he was surprised by his son's arrest. Sayeedi claimed his son was innocent and never indulged in any such activities. He added that his son had been working in Dubai for the last 10 years.

PTI