In a major security breach, the co-founder of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen, Yasin Bhatkal made phone calls to his wife from the highly-guarded Hyderabad jail. Sources in the Delhi Police say that during a phone call Bhatkal told his wife that he would soon be out of jail with help from Damascus in Syria, hinting at him getting a possible help from terror group Islamic State.
While security agencies are not too worried about the IS angle, they are concerned about how Bhatkal managed to access a mobile phone in the high-security jail. A further probe revealed that the phone was smuggled into the prison a month ago and Bhatkal and some other criminals had access to it.
Yasin Bhatkal, whose real name is Muhammad Ahmad Zarar Siddibapa, was arrested in 2013 from the India-Nepal border in Bihar. He hails from Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka. He co-founded the Indian Mujahideen in 2008 with his brothers Riaz Bhatkal and Abdul Subhan Qureshi.
He was on the NIA Most Wanted list and security agencies had been looking for him from the past five years. He is the only top Indian Mujahideen operative who decided to stay back in the country after the crackdown on the outfit.
He is alleged to have been involved in the 2010 Pune German Bakery blast in which 17 people were killed and is suspected to the person who actually planted the explosives. He was caught on CCTV trying to conceal his identity by wearing a cap.
The Indian Mujahideen is suspected to be responsible for a long list of terror attacks in India including the ones in Bangalore and Hyderabad. He is the main accused in the blast outside a stadium in Bangalore in 2010 just before a cricket match.
He had earlier been arrested in 2008 by the West Bengal Police, but he managed to get bail as the officials were not aware that they have caught a dreaded terrorist. The Indian Mujahideen came into being after the ban on Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
Meanwhile, his alleged links with Islamic State have raised fears about the terror outfit gaining foothold in India. In January 2015, the government had blocked 32 websites citing national security concerns, as they were allegedly carrying anti-India material from terror groups such as Islamic State.
Sources said the websites were being used to induce Indian youth to join ISIS and for spreading news about purported death of certain persons while fighting Allied Forces in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq.
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