A shadowy and elusive member of the proscribed Al Ummah terrorist outfit in South India, who eluded the police for 30 years regardless of being linked to high-profile terrorism circumstances just like the 2013 BJP workplace blast case in Bengaluru, has been arrested by the Tamil Nadu Police in Andhra Pradesh.
Abubakar Siddique, who’s in his late 50s, was arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in Annamaya district of Andhra Pradesh, the Tamil Nadu police mentioned in an official assertion on Monday. The Tamil Nadu CB-CID police had introduced a reward of Rs 5 lakh for his arrest in 2013 after he was linked to a collection of assaults on BJP and right-wing leaders within the state.
Siddique is reportedly a foreign-trained terrorist operative and the alleged brains behind Al Ummah-linked assaults in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka since 1995. He’s additionally named as accused quantity 19 within the chargesheet for the 2013 BJP workplace blast case in Bengaluru, the place the trial is at present underway. The incident, the place an IED left on a bike parked reverse the BJP workplace exploded, had left 16 individuals injured.
Siddique, who hails from Nagore in Tamil Nadu, was arrested with an affiliate, Mohammed Ali of Tirunelveli. They “had been absconding after planning varied bomb blasts and spiritual killings in Tamil Nadu since 1995”, the TN ATS mentioned.
Siddique can be linked to the 1995 blast on the Hindu Munnani workplace in Chennai’s Chintadripet, a parcel bomb blast case on the home of Nagore Thangam Muthukrishnan, and the 1999 blasts at seven locations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, together with the Chennai police commissioner’s workplace.
He’s additionally accused within the 2011 Madurai Thirumangalam Advani Rath Yatra pipe bomb blast case and the 2012 Vellore physician Arvind Reddy homicide case. Siddique’s confederate, Ali, is accused of planting bombs at seven locations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala in 1999.
“Each of them are remanded in judicial custody by the Tamil Nadu Anti-Terrorism Squad as per the arrest warrant issued by the Chennai courtroom,” the state police mentioned on July 1.
Story continues under this advert
Siddique’s title had emerged as a key participant in terrorism plots in a number of investigations between 1995 to 2024, however the police had failed to trace him down as he allegedly used covert techniques to work together with the individuals immediately concerned within the assaults.
Who’s Abubakar Siddique? What Bengaluru police discovered
Abubakar Siddique, who holds a grasp’s diploma in literature, was on the high of the management pyramid for the conspiracy to assault the BJP workplace in Bengaluru, and was the doable financier and the important thing to bringing collectively two factions of the Al Ummah, based on the town police.
The 2014 arrest of Parvai Basha, the alleged provider of explosives for the BJP workplace blast in Bengaluru, and the 2013 arrests of Police Fakrudeen, Panna Ismail, and Bilal Malik, three alleged perpetrators of the blast–– all linked to Al Ummah—had revealed Siddique as a key determine within the BJP workplace bomb plot.
In 2013, sources within the Karnataka Police had mentioned that Siddique had been lacking from the police radar for almost 16 years. Siddique had claimed to have educated with a terror group in Afghanistan throughout his interactions with the lads he educated, police sources mentioned.
Story continues under this advert
The Bengaluru blast investigation allegedly revealed that Siddique was a key stakeholder within the Tamil Nadu-based Charitable Belief for Minorities, whose funds had been accessed by Kichan Buhari, Fakrudeen and others to organize and plan for the BJP workplace blast.
In its chargesheet within the case, the Bengaluru police acknowledged that the Charitable Belief for Minorities supplied as a lot as Rs 1.5 lakh, which was used within the funding of the blast. Siddique has been cited as a key mover behind the belief. Siddique has been named as ‘Siddique Bhai’—one amongst 20 individuals within the conspiracy—within the chargesheet.
The police investigation allegedly revealed that Siddique motivated and guided Fakrudeen and Malik to execute the April 17, 2013, assault on the BJP workplace. The investigations additionally allegedly revealed that it was Siddique who taught Fakruddin to make IEDs.
The IED for the BJP workplace blast was allegedly ready at a hideout close to Chittoor. The directive to focus on the BJP workplace in Bengaluru was allegedly given by Siddique.
Story continues under this advert
“Siddique travelled and communicated in a way the place he could be untraceable. This implies he has been educated in covert terrorist operations. We expect he could also be linked to an exterior terrorist group,” a police supply had mentioned in 2013.
Siddique has been represented in courtroom paperwork as a speaker of a number of languages, together with Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Urdu, and English.