Bhatkal had managed elude Indian security agencies thrice in the past. In the winter of 2008, a Mumbai crime branch team raided Bhatkal’s house in Karnataka. But Bhatkal had been unwittingly alerted by a local policeman who thought he was an accused in a fake currency case. When the Mumbai crime branch police inspector Dinesh Kadam reached his house he saw the rear door kept ajar. The tea in the kettle was still simmering on the stove but Yasin Bhatkal had fled.
In 2009, the West Bengal police cracked an international fake currency racket operating via West Bengal and had even arrested Bhatkal but he managed to escape from there too. Bhatkal identified himself as Mohammed Ashraf from Darbhangadistrict in Bihar. He told the police that he was a ‘courier’ and was asked to ‘receive' a consignment of fake currencies from Bangladesh. He was in jail for a month and later released on bail. Bhatkal managed to escape to Pakistan via Dubai only to return in February 2010 to Pune to carry out the blast at German bakery.
A year later he also executed the2011 blasts in Mumbai and escaped to Delhi, where he got re-married. But in November 2012 when the Delhi police nabbed six IM men, Yasin was alerted. He fled to Bihar along with his accomplice Danish Ansari. In January 2013, the NIA tracked down and arrested him. But by then Yasin Bhatkal managed to crossover to the other side of the border.
