Is Bhatkal planning escape from jail?

Hyderabad: Co-founder of notorious terrorist outfit, Indian Mujahideen, Yasin Bhatkal, who is lodged in the high security Cherlapally central prison, dropped a major bombshell when he reportedly told his wife that he would soon be out of jail with the help from Damascus.

According to intelligence sources, they had this information a couple of days back and it is said that the first information in this regard had come from New Delhi. It is learnt that the security agencies had kept a tab on the phone of Bhatkal’s wife Zahida. While the security agencies suspected that Bhatkal might have used a mobile phone, the prison authorities in Telangana ruled out the possibility of usage of smuggled cell-phone by Yasin Bhatkal.

Shocked over the intelligence inputs, the authorities on Saturday made a thorough study into the security arrangements and also checked if there was any possibility of mobile phones having been smuggled in. The authorities have also beefed up the security in and around the Central Jail following reports of Yasin Bhatkal’s link to ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). “There are 13 members related to cases of terrorism and no calls were made or received to them from Syria,” clarified Prisons DIG A Narasimha to media.

The authorities, who communicated with the NIA officials, maintained that the only source of communication for Yasin Bhatkal was the landline phone. Prisoners are permitted to talk to their family members once a month following the orders of First Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge, who passed the order on February 18. Earlier the landline facility was not provided for him.

The official, who listened to the recorded communication between Bhatkal and his wife Zahida, said that the records would be handed over to National Investigation Agency for examination. “There is only five minutes of permission given and their conversation was recorded.”

According to Prisons DIG, Bhatkal communicated only with his wife and mother in Arabic and Urdu. I heard one hour of communication and we shall also hand over the recordings to the agencies for further examination,” the DIG said. According to the official, a total of 27 calls of five minutes duration were made by Yasin Bhatkal during the last few months.

Yasin Bhatkal, also known as Muhammad Ahmad Zarar Siddibapa, was arrested in 2013 from the India-Nepal border in Bihar.He hails from Bhatkal taluk in 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’s Most Wanted list and security agencies had been looking for him for 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 be 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 of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).