The three Pakistani nationals and Indian citizen Mohammad Shihab who were arrested on Wednesday night in Bengaluru have been remanded in police custody for 15 days. They were taken to investigation cells in the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) building in Madivala where the Central Crime Branch, along with teams from central intelligence agencies, questioned them separately all through Friday.
According to sources, intelligence agencies are conducting separate enquiries to see if the four are part of a terrorist outfit or a sleeper cell.
“So far, we have learnt that the three Pakistanis and the Indian, who is from Kerala, planned to settle down here as their respective parents are against their marriages,” a source said. “But we are not ruling out the possibility of the suspects being a part of a sleeper cell.”
The police had arrested Shihab and his wife Samira Abdul Rehman (25) along with a married couple — Kirhon Ghulam Ali (26) and Khasif Shamshuddin (30) for faking documents and living illegally in Bengaluru. The other three are from Karachi in Pakistan.
Investigative teams are piecing together their daily routine to find out who they met, spoke to and called. “We need to know if they communicated with people from other countries, and if so, who?” a source in the police explained.
Preliminary questioning revealed that Shihab fell in love with, and later married, Samira when they were working in Qatar. Facing opposition from their families, particularly Samira’s family which vehemently opposed the marriage, the two decided to flee to India. They were accompanied by Kirhon and Khasif, who are Samira’s cousins.
A senior police officer said, “We cannot accept their claims blindly. We are probing all angles and will coordinate with the Kerala police to find out the antecedents of Muhammed Shihab.”
