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Fahad taken back to Mysore

Staff Reporter

No evidence of his involvement in the twin blasts

KOZHIKODE: Suspected Al-Badr terrorist Mohammed Fahad, who was brought here last week for interrogation in connection with several cases in Kozhikode, was on Tuesday taken back to Mysore.

The Karnataka police had arrested the Pakistani national along with another terrorist Mohammed Ali Hussein in Mysore in October for plotting to attack the Vikasa Soudha in Bangalore and the Central Institute of Indian Languages in Mysore.

Fahad was produced before the Kunnamangalam Judicial First Class Magistrate's Court on Tuesday. Magistrate K.T. Nizar Ahamed remanded him to judicial custody at the Mysore Central Jail till February 6.

Karachi-born Fahad was brought to Kozhikode on Thursday following a request by the Kerala police to the Karnataka police to question him in cases such as securing a fake passport from the Kozhikode Passport Office, the twin-blasts at the KSRTC bus stand and mofussil bus station on March 3, 2006 and his links with fundamentalist outfits involved in hawala dealings in the State.

North Zone Inspector-General of Police M.N. Krishnamurthy; Deputy Inspector-General of Police S. Anandakrishnan; Kozhikode City Police Commissioner Balram Kumar Upadhyay; officials of the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID); and Intelligence Bureau interrogated him in the past five days.

During the investigations in October and November, the Karnataka police had found that the Pakistani youth had maintained close links with the relatives of his father in Kozhikode. Fahad, a chemical engineer, is the seventh son of Abdulla Koya who migrated to Karachi in Pakistan during the Indo-Pak war.

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the City Police later got clinching evidence that Fahad had made an attempt to secure a fake passport through his relatives in Kozhikode and travel agents in Malappuram district. Seven persons have been arrested in connection with the case, including his relatives — Kammad Haji and his daughter Fathima Beegum.

Senior police officials said Fahad was brought to Kozhikode to collect statements and to ascertain his involvement in other cases. He admitted that he had made an attempt to secure a fake passport. But he was unable to receive the passport, which was later destroyed by one of the travel agents.

Intention

Fahad's intention was to set up a base in Kozhikode and form a network of the Al-Badr with several fundamentalist organisations in Kerala. Al-Badr operates through Jehadi groups in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. However the CB-CID Special Investigation Group (III), which is investigating the twin blast cases in the city, failed to get any evidence of the involvement of Fahad in the incident.

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