Alleged terror mastermind and Indian Muzahideen co-founder Yasin Bhatkal was on Saturday brought to Bihar’s northern Darbhanga town by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) sleuths in a highly secretive operation and taken to locations where he lived and befriended people.
Bhatkal, who was arrested jointly by the NIA and Bihar police near Raxaul on the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar on August 29, was brought to the town in a special BSF helicopter by a four-member team of NIA officials from Delhi in the morning, said state police sources familiar with the operation. The primary purpose of the visit, they said, was to corroborate Bhatkal’s confessions during the NIA’s interrogation about the “Darbhanga module” of the IM.
that he allegedly created during his stay in the district between 2008 and 2011.
The NIA officials, led by its IG Sanjeev Kumar Singh and DIG Vikas Vaibhav, took Bhatkal to at least three locations in the district and reportedly conducted raids at least six raids during their nearly four-hour stay there before flying away for Delhi in the afternoon. Several local people the NIA officials spoke to along with Bhatkal’s photographs reportedly identified him. Bhatkal was reportedly known as “Dr Imran” during the years he spent in Darbhanga and claimed to practice Unani medicine.
The alleged top terrorist, wanted in 12 states for bombings and various terror activities in the past five years, was taken to a library and a private school in Karamganj area of Darbhanga’s Laheriasarai and then to Chakjohra village, where one of his alleged local hosts and terror associates, Mohammad Danish Ansari, was earlier arrested. Bhatkal was also taken to Jamalchak village under Mobbi police station, from where another of his alleged terror associates, Mohammad Kafeel Ahmad, was arrested earlier. The NIA team also visited Shivdhara-Chakjamal village where Bhatkal lived as a tenant in 2010-11 and practiced Unani medicine, said sources.