Indian court frees Nepal's 26/11 suspect

Dec 07, 2010 |

IANS

Kathmandu

Tags:

A young Muslim from Nepal, who had been held in an Indian prison for eight months on suspicion of being involved in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, has been freed on bail, a media report here said on Tuesday.

Mohammed Ghulam Bashir, a small-time trader in Nepal's Sunsari district along the Indian border, was arrested by police in Bihar's Katihar district earlier in 2010 and charged with being involved in terrorist activities that culminated from November 26-29, 2008 in Mumbai.

The high court in Patna on Friday ordered the 35-year-old to be released on bail, Nepal's Naya Patrika daily reported. Last week, the tabloid had broken the story of the
Nepali's incarceration in Bihar's Katihar jail after he visited his Indian in-laws to meet his wife, who had just given birth.

Alerted by the buzz that a "foreigner" had been seen in the Katihar village, police arrived at Bashir's in-laws’ place and confiscated his passport and mobile phone for preliminary investigations. On finding that the passport bore a visa for Pakistan, the police arrested the young Muslim on the suspicion that he was a terrorist.

Bashir's elder brother Mohammad Gulab said he was camping in Katihar to wait for his brother and bring him back to Nepal. Since the court order came on Friday, Gulab said it would reach the Katihar authorities only around Tuesday.

Bashir's father-in-law has agreed to pay the bail and the imprisoned Nepali should be released by Wednesday, Gulab said. Bashir's family rejected the charges against him as baseless.

According to them, Bashir, who studied Islamic religion in India's Lucknow city, went to Pakistan to do his master's in the subject as there were no institutions for higher Islamic studies in Nepal.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/46322" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-abdc0e0e0f8bb30099b862850f5ec675" value="form-abdc0e0e0f8bb30099b862850f5ec675" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80556684" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>