The agencies investigating The Rameshwaram Cafe blast case are now keen on unmasking the identity of an “online handler”, suspected to be based abroad, who allegedly indoctrinated and coached the “Thirthahalli module” led by Abdul Matheen Taaha, who is allegedly behind the cafe blast.
Interestingly, the case has now been linked to two earlier terror conspiracy cases dating back to 2012 and 2020 in Karnataka, with common accused in these cases. In all three cases, the modules had an unidentified “online handler” suspected to be based out of Pakistan.
Identification is key
Agencies believe that identifying the handler may hold the key to multiple terror plots in the State over the past 12 years. Agencies are not ruling out the possibility that the handler in all three cases could be the same person. However, senior officials said that there was no confirmation on this, and the handlers could well be different people.
The National Investigation Agency on Friday (May 24) arrested Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, 35, a resident of Hubballi and an ex-convict in a 2012 Lashkar-e-Taiba terror conspiracy case.
NIA claimed Mirza, who served a sentence of five years in the 2012 case and came out of jail in 2017, introduced Taaha to “an online handler through an encrypted email” in 2018.
Taaha’s name first emerged on the radar of security agencies in 2020 when they busted an Islamic State-inspired Al Hind terror module in Bengaluru. The module allegedly was in advanced preparations to set up camps in the jungles of south India to launch an IS-like insurgency.
“Taaha was one of the main accused in the case, along with his associate Mussavir Hussain, who planted the bomb at The Rameshwaram Cafe. Both gave the slip to agencies and were absconding till they were arrested in April 2024 by the NIA. Our investigations revealed that Taaha was the link between the module and a Pakistan-based online handler, with whom the module used to chat on a laptop using encrypted communication tools. Given that NIA has now found out that Mirza introduced him to an online handler in 2018, chances are high that the same handler was coaching the Al Hind module through Taaha,” said a senior police official who probed the Al Hind module case.
Putting together module
Once the Al Hind module was busted, Taaha and Hussain went absconding, and they allegedly put together the “Thirthahalli module”, radicalising youths of their hometown in south Karnataka. This module is the accused in four terror cases — a pro-terror graffiti case in 2020, a trial blast case in Shivamogga, the cooker blast case in Mangaluru in 2022, and the cafe blast in 2024.
With the arrest of Mirza in the case, NIA now claims that the same online handler Mirza introduced to Taaha in 2018 was the handler to the Thirthahalli module and in the cafe blast as well.
In the 2012 terror conspiracy case, in which 13 people, including Mirza, were convicted for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to kill journalists, police officials, and writers from the Hindu community, chargesheets mention that the module had a Pakistan-based online handler, whose identity they could not establish.
This essentially means the 2012 LeT terror conspiracy case, the 2020 Al Hind module case, and the 2024 The Rameshwaram Cafe blast case seem to be linked to one another through Shoaib Ahmed Mirza and Abdul Matheen Taaha at one end and an unidentified online handler, based abroad, at the other.
