NIA court convicts 3 al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists in 2016 Mysuru court blast case

Bengaluru, Oct 08: An NIA court here on Friday convicted three people, who had pledged their allegiance to proscribed terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, for their involvement in the bomb blast in a Mysuru court in 2016, an official said.

Nainar Abbas Ali, M Samsun Karim Raja and Dawood Sulaiman, all residents of Tamil Nadu, have been convicted for their involvement in the bomb blast on August 1, 2016, in a public toilet in the court premises at Chamarajapuram in Karnataka's Mysuru city, the NIA official said. Quantum of punishment will be pronounced on October 11, the official said.

The case was registered against unknown accused. Based on the orders of the MHA, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) re-registered the case and took over the investigation.

The bomb blast in the Mysuru court was one among a series of five explosions by the members of Base Movement, an organisation owing allegiance to al-Qaeda, the NIA official said.

In 2016, they had executed a blast at Chittor Court at Nellore in Andhra Pradesh in April, at Kollam court in Kerala in May, again at a Nellore court in September 2016 and at Mallapuram court in Kerala in November 2016, the official said. Ali and Sulaiman had formed the Base Movement in Tamil Nadu in January 2015, inspired by the ideology of al-Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Laden, according to the NIA official.

They recruited other accused and hatched a conspiracy to threaten government departments, especially courts, holding them responsible for "atrocities and injustice meted out to a particular religious group", the official said.

They systematically issued threats to prison authorities and police officials of different states and the French Embassy in India. The NIA had filed a charge sheet against Nainar Abbas Ali, Raja and Sulaiman in May 2017 and the trial in the case was concluded in September 2021, the official said.