The National Investigating Agency (NIA) has named the mastermind of the Bangalore terror plot as a city-based engineer who is presently holed up in Saudi Arabia.
The NIA which filed a charge sheet before the court, said that he was identified through a portrait based on the description provided by the prime accused, Shoaib Ahmed Mirza.
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The portrait was later identified by the owner of a sports equipment shop, Ram Reddy, who named him as Yeshwantpur resident Zakir Ustad aka Mohammed Shaheed Faisal.
Faisal studied engineering at the M.S. Ramaiah College from 2004 to 2008.
The NIA charge sheet said he fled to Saudi Arabia soon after the terror module was busted.
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The NIA has issued notice to service providers seeking information about the email IDs used by the suspects. It has also evoked the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) with the United States seeking the contents of the emails. Digital evidence such as hard discs, laptops, pen drives, compact discs and mobile phones seized from the accused have been sent to Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad, for analysis.
The charge sheet said the suspects were planning to eliminate former Joint Commissioner of Police B. Dayanand, Deputy Commissioner of Police Krishnam Raju and Assistant Commissioner of Police B.N. Nyame Gowda apart from the politicians and journalists.
Ironically, Mr. Dayanand was heading the entire operation of the terror module before he was transferred few days ago.
25 persona named
The charge sheet names some 25 accused, most of them holed up in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, operating as handlers.
The investigation is supervised by Deputy Inspector-General of Police A. Ravishankar and Superintendent of Police K. Sunil Emmanuel.