No bail for Mumbai techie accused of being ISIS sympathiser

Mumbai, Jan 7: A local magistrate's court today rejected the bail application of the city-based software engineer Anees Ansari who was arrested for allegedly conspiring to blow up US establishments in the city.

Earlier, the sessions court had rejected his bail application on December 22 last year. In the present application, Ansari had argued that as the murder charge was not applicable, the police should have filed the charge sheet within 60 days, which they did not.

"We had applied for bail on technical grounds but the court rejected the application," said Ansari's lawyer Sharif Sheikh. Advocate Sheikh also said he will move the Bombay High Court against the investigation agency's anti-terrorism squad for pressing the charge of murder even when Ansari had not killed anybody.

According to ATS, Ansari, whose office job involved making navigation maps, admired the middle-east terror group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). His online chats hinted at a plot to target the US establishments including a school in suburban Bandra, it says.

Ansari had applied for a passport recently, which led the investigators to suspect that he planned to leave the country to join ISIS.

PTI