The two men arrested from West Bengal’s Digha in connection with Bengaluru’s Rameshwaram Cafe blast managed to evade arrest for 42 days by picking low-cost hideouts and not panicking despite a nation-wide alert for them, top Intelligence sources have told CNN-News18.
The men, identified as Mussavir Hussain Shazib and Abdul Matheen Taahaa, were arrested on Friday, with sources saying they opted for road travel, spent less time on their mobile phones and visited crowded tourist places while on the run — all in a bid to escape scrutiny.
“The men were not in a state of panic or hurry. They very carefully maintained a low-cost lifestyle and stayed in hotels that charged just Rs 400-500 a night. Cryptocurrencies were used where their account was linked to the account of the handler and the ATM card was with the accused,” the sources said.
So far, agencies have not worked out the full itinerary of the men but according to them, they travelled to Chennai, Odisha and West Bengal.
“Nothing was planned after the blast. They decided everything on the spot and kept moving to avoid being apprehended. Their longest stay was at a Digha lodge which was a possible mistake. They used all identities, including of Maharashtra domicile, Jharkhand, Karnataka, and Tripura. They ensured different fake IDs for all hotels and lodges, including surnames like Patel, Dass and Agarwal according to the demography of the place,” the sources added.
After the blast on March 1, the men left for Chennai and later entered West Bengal.
“The interesting part is there was no desperation for money and the amount received was also not huge. They wanted things to settle down and were also on the lookout for the next target during these 42 days,” the Intel sources said.
The arrests are a crucial breakthrough for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Intelligence agencies which had managed to crack the pattern that the accused were following while on the run.
Sources said after the attack, the accused stayed only in guesthouses and private lodges where verification was not forced. “The first breakthrough came after agencies found the cap worn by one of the men. It was purchased from a Chennai store. Then, we started looking at their pattern of stay. In Chennai, too, they stayed in a lodge and were on the run after this. We followed all small towns and tourist town where lodges are not checked for identification. Finally, they were found in Digha.”
Officials had earlier said that Shazib had placed the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at the cafe in Brookefield on March 1, which had a timer set for an hour, while Taahaa was the mastermind behind the planning and execution of the blast.
Ten people were injured in the blast at the popular eatery in the area. The cafe reopened on March 15 with heightened security measures. The NIA Special Court, Kolkata, where the two accused were produced after arrest, has granted three days transit remand to the agency.
The men are residents of Thirthahalli in Shivamogga district of Karnataka and are linked to the 2022 Mangaluru pressure cooker blast. “They are close friends of Mohammad Shariq, who was involved in the Mangaluru blast. They may have been planning to make one big IED and carry out a major blast. Their handler is foreign-based, who is hiding and funding them,” sources said.
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