'Sanjay Agarwal & Uday Das': After Changing Names, Bengaluru Blast Accused Caught On Cam At Kolkata Hotel

After an investigation spanning 42 days in the Rameshwaram Cafe blast case, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested the two accused — Mussavir Hussain Shazib and Abdul Matheen Taaha — from West Bengal on Friday.

“It is a crucial development for intelligence agencies and the NIA. They followed a pattern for 42 days which the agencies were tracking,” said sources, adding the duo only stayed in guesthouses and private lodges where verification is not forced.

A court later gave the central agency a three-day transit remand of the two men.

The accused are residents of Thirthahalli in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district. Shazib had placed the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at the cafe and Tahaa was the mastermind behind the planning and execution of the blast, the officials said.

NEW CCTV FOOTAGE SHOWS ACCUSED AT A KOLKATA GUEST HOUSE

A day after the arrest of Shazib and Tahaa, new CCTV footage of the two accused has emerged. The two can be seen checking into a guest house, said to be situated in Kolkata’s Ekbalpur.

Shazib and Tahaa had checked into this guest house on March 25 and stayed there for three days. They had told the staffers that they were tourists, belonging to Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The receptionist of the hotel, Ashraf Ali, told news agency ANI, “They came on 25th March and showed their Identity cards, and we provided them a room. They checked out from the Hotel on 28th March. When the officials from NIA arrived, they went through the entry register and started an investigation.”

“We do not provide food inside the Hotel, so both of them used to go out to have food. They paid in cash and booked only one room. Both of them used their regional language to communicate with each other,” Ali added.

ACCUSED USED HINDU NAMES AS ALIASES

Said to be the mastermind behind the Bengaluru cafe blast, Abdul Matheen Taha had also used Hindu names as aliases at various locations for accommodation. Even the wanted poster for the accused noted that “he has been using Hindu identity documents, forging names such as Vignesh or other similar forged ID documents”.

Before their arrest, the two were putting up in a lodge in New Digha for the past four days. They had switched several locations in Bengal.

Shazib had used a fake Aadhaar card of one Yusha Shahnawaz Patel from Maharashtra’s Palghar at the two Kolkata hotels. While Tahaa had used fake names such as Vignesh BD from Karnataka at one hotel and Anmol Kulkarni in another.

Then again at another hotel, they took the identities of Sanjay Agarwal and Uday Das, hailing from Jharkhand and Tripura respectively, Times of India reported.

While Tahaa is an IT engineer, it is suspected that Shazib is a key person in influencing the Islamic State’s (IS) Shivamogga-based module.

Investigators believe Taahaa used the cryptocurrency route to finance the operation, CNN-News18 has learnt. Some electronic gadgets and about 70 articles were seized from the two men, the agency had said in court.

Some reports said that Shazib, Tahaa and another suspect — Shareef — all associated with ISIS modules, were also involved in the Shivamogga graffiti case as well as the Mangaluru cooker blast case reported in November 2023.

NIA had declared rewards of Rs 10 lakh on information leading to the arrest of each person on the run on March 29.

The NIA, central intelligence agencies and state police agencies of West Bengal, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala coordinated for the arrests, PTI reported.