Yasin Bhatkal

Mohammed Ahmed Siddibappa, named Yasin Bhatkal by Indian investigative agencies, is the founder leader of the proscribed terrorist organisation Indian Mujahideen (IM). He was listed on the NIA Most Wanted until his arrest on the India-Nepal border near Motihari, Bihar on 28 August 2013.^[1] Yasin undertook arms and explosive training in Pakistan in 2006 to launch terror attacks.^[2]

Early life

Ahmed Siddibapa was born on 15 January 1983 to Zarar Siddibapa and Rehana. He studied until the 10th grade at Bhatkal, Karnataka. After not being able to clear his 10th grade examination he left for Dubai in November 2005. According to his family, Ahmed disappeared from Dubai in January 2007.^[3] Few years back he married a girl named Ekta at New Delhi. He told her that he was Imran hailing from Lucknow.^[4] Since 2010, he was living in the guise of Dr. Shahrukh, a Unani Doctor at Pokhara, Nepal.^[5]

Militancy

2010 Bangalore stadium bombing

In 2010, the Karnataka investigators had alleged that the attacks were likely to have been carried out by a jihadist cell led by Karachi based jihadist, Riyaz Ismail Shahbandri's key lieutenant Yasin . Soon after the arrest of several of Sidibapa's alleged associates from Darbhanga, in Bihar police began investigating Fasih Mehmood's possible role in the cell.

2012 Pune bombing

Indian Investigators suspect Yasin, had planted one of the bombs on Jangli Maharaj road on 1 August, when four low-intensity blasts occurred in Pune.^[6]

Capture and interrogation

Yasin was traced and detained at the India-Nepal border in Nepal by Nepal Police and handed to Indian Police on 28 August 2013. He was the second big catch for Indian security agencies after the arrest of Abdul Karim Tunda, a key Lashkar-e-Taiba operative and expert bomb-maker, who was arrested from the India-Nepal border on 16 August. "He is presently in the custody of Bihar Police. His interrogation is going on", said the Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde at the time.

The arrest of Yasin alias Ahmed Siddibappa alias Shahrukh is being seen as a major breakthrough in the agencies' protracted efforts to break the back of the Indian Mujahideen, the Lashker-e-Taiba-backed indigenous jihadi outfit behind the Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune and Jaipur blasts. "This is the biggest success after the Batla House operation, following which the IM was forced to slow down its activities," said an intelligence official. ^[7][8][9] On 31 August 2013, during initial interrogation, Bhatkal admitted to recruiting young men from Bihar for terror attacks across the country.^[10]

Yasin Bhatkal admitted his involvement in carrying out the 2011 triple blasts in Mumbai. He admitted to the investigative agency that he was the mastermind behind the blasts and he is satisfied with whatever he has done and has no remorse or regret whatsoever.^[11]

Arms training in Pakistan

Yasin Bhatkal allegedly entered Pakistan in early 2006 on a regular commercial flight from Dubai even though he did not have a visa and was whisked away from the aircraft by his contacts to avoid immigration checks. Yasin was taken to a hilly region with little habitation around, about 8–10 hours from Karachi and believed to be somewhere in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. "Next day our training started. There were six instructors, who I understand were from Pakistan army," he has said, adding that he and some other recruits were taught to handle weapons and explosives and make bombs during the training that lasted about 50 days. Yasin has told interrogators that he spent about 50 days in Pakistan undergoing training to launch terror attacks and returned to Dubai in the same manner after his hosts stamped his passport with fake immigration stamps to show that he had entered and exited India.^[12]

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