Bengaluru: The alleged mastermind behind the Kaliyakkavilai cop's murder and chief of banned terror outfit Al Ummah has been arrested in Bengaluru.
Mehboob Pasha, 45, was arrested along with his close aides, Jabeebullah, Mohammed Mansur and Ajmatullah, from Gurappanapalya near S G Palya in South Bengaluru on Thursday.
Their links to the terror outfit Islamic State are also being probed.
Thursday's operation was led by the Karnataka Police Central Crime Branch (CCB) and the Internal Security Division (ISD). The officers said that the arrested were plotting to create communal problems in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
(Al Ummah, which is primarily based in Tamil Nadu, had come to limelight with the 1998 Coimbatore bombings.)
Link to cop killers
Special Sub-inspector (SSI) Wilson was shot and stabbed allegedly by Abdul Shameem and Taufeeq when he was on duty at the Kaliyakkavilai check-post in Kanyakumari district along the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border on January 8. Ijas Pasha, who provided arms to the accused, is an aide of Mehboob.
The Al Ummah leader got acquainted with Shameem and Taufeeq at a Madrassa at Gundlupet, close to Kerala border, in Karnataka's Chamarajanagar district.
The Tamil Nadu Police had recently arrested Al Ummah workers Muhammed Haneef Khan, 29, Muhammed Syed, 24, and Imran Khan, 32, in connection with the murder of Hindu Munnani leader Suresh Kumar at Coimbatore in 2014. They were arrested on January 7 from Bengaluru. Soon after their arrest, a case was filed against 17 people, including Mehboob Pasha, under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
The prime accused in Suresh murder case, Moideen Khwaja, was also arrested from Delhi recently. Moideen Khwaja and Mehboob Pasha jointly led the Al Ummah.
From bus driver to terror outfit
Mehboob Pasha was a driver with a private travel agency at Kalasipalayam in the heart of Bengaluru. He had driven buses along the Bengaluru-Mumbai route for long. This helped him form links with the weapon sellers in Mumbai.
Al Ummah functioned discreetly under the cover of a trust, Al-Hind, on the Bannerghatta Road in Bengaluru. The objective of the trust was to send youths to the IS centres in Syria and garner foreign funds to buy weapons.
Attempts were made to buy 50 acres to expand their activities in Karnataka, Moideen Khwaja reportedly told the police.
UAPA charges against cop's killers
The two prime suspects in the recent murder of an SSI at Kaliyakkavilai in Kanyakumari district have been booked under the provisions of the stringent UAPA due to their suspected links to terror outfits.
However, the Tamil Nadu Police said that further investigation was needed to ascertain their terror links. The police mentioned about the UAPA charges in the remand report submitted to the court.
The duo Abdul Shameem and Taufeeq were nabbed from Udupi in Karnataka, by the Tamil Nadu Police on Tuesday. They have allegedly confessed to have carried out the murder to exact revenge on the state police for obstructing their activities. The accused also said that the murder was an attack on the state and police.
The duo had fired three rounds of shots at Wilson, the 58-year-old cop and also stabbed him. Wilson was the only cop on duty at the checkpost near the Kerala border, set up to thwart sand smuggling.