The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has already made some arrests in the Mangaluru blast case but Pasha’s involvement has come to fore now during the interrogation by Nagpur police.
The Nagpur police had taken Pasha into custody from Belagavi jail in Karnataka for planning the threat calls made to Union minister Nitin Gadkari‘s office earlier this year. Jayesh Kantha alias Pujari was the first to be arrested in the case in March after he made the second call.
Pasha, who had asked Jayesh Kantha to make the calls from the jail on January 14 and March 21 to demand ₹100 crore, had in the past also masterminded a blast in Dhaka in Bangladesh where he had spent considerable time.
According to a security wing source, Pasha had trained the Mangaluru terror modules in preparing improvised explosive devices like cooker bombs. After being trained by LeT in preparing IEDs, Pasha had first masterminded the Dhaka blast. He was working for the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) and carrying out the terror missions of LeT across India, especially south India.
Pasha, after being arrested for terror activities, had formed a group in the Belagavi jail where he started indoctrinating prisoners from a particular community to join the terror missions against India.
City police have now relayed the activities of the Belagavi-based prisoners in executing terror plans across India, which mainly revolves around targeting top leaders like Gadkari and former deputy chief minister of Karnataka KS Eshwarappa.
The city police have also underlined the formation of ‘Jamaat fund’ collected in the name of PFI through donations, extortions and such activities to lure the prisoners into joining terror activities. The funds were primarily used for purchasing electronic gadgets, phones, devices and paying for various facilities like making calls from the prison and feasting.
According to a senior officer of Nagpur police, Pasha was planning to extend his concept of jail-based groups for terror missions across India by posing as PFI member. “Pasha was using inmates like Jayesh to execute his plan, exploiting each-other’s networks and contacts for bigger terror plans. The radicalized and indoctrinated inmates would turn sleeper cells in different places after their release,” said an official adding the different government security and intelligence agencies have been alerted.
