Important information about the suspect in the explosion, that injured nine people, has been gleaned from the baseball cap that the suspect was wearing when he detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) at Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru on 1st March, reported The Indian Express. A cap he was witnessed wearing in the CCTV video turned up abandoned adjacent to a Mosque around three kilometers from the Whitefield Cafe where he reportedly changed his shirt to a round-neck t-shirt.
Investigators found their way to a mall in central Chennai by the branded cap with the number 10 engraved on it. The cap was sold at a branded retail establishment in late January. Additional CCTV footage showed two men, including the suspect from the cafe CCTV recordings, purchasing the cap and other products, according to multiple sources involved in the inquiry. The company, which exclusively operates in South India through retail locations and internet sales, has sold just about 400 of the caps, which are part of a limited edition item series from a young brand. According to police sources, every cap has a unique number that can be linked to the point of sale.
Police located the people who had purchased the cap by comparing the purchase date with the retail location’s CCTV footage. Sources disclosed, “The store had CCTV backup for over a month. The cap was purchased in January 2024.” Several people acquainted with the investigation said that CCTV evidence from the store and footage from Bengaluru, where the suspect was captured riding a public bus without a mask, had helped authorities piece together the identity of the culprit.
Police sources indicated that the man is believed to be Musavir Hussain Shazib, a suspected terrorist from the Islamic State’s Shivamogga module. Investigative agencies have been tracking him since January 2020, and the National Investigation Agency has offered a reward of Rs 5 lakh for his capture. According to police sources, “The new CCTV footage confirms the theory that the suspect is Shazib.”
A senior Bengaluru police officer informed, “There are similarities with a suspect who has been missing for over four years. It can be confirmed only scientifically or after an arrest.” The sources noted that hair samples from the suspect’s family members could be utilised to perform a DNA match because of the samples that investigating agencies obtained from the baseball cap.
Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara stated, “The identity of the suspect has been established in some ways. We have to confirm it and catch him. The NIA and CCB are working together. We are getting closer,” on 11th March.
Islamic State’s module in Shivamogga
A key suspect from the Islamic State’s Shivamogga module was taken into custody by the NIA on 14th March as part of its investigations. The accused was being held at Bengaluru Central Prison in relation to a case involving test bombs in Shivamogga in 2022. Maaz Muneer Ahmed, a 25-year-old postgraduate student in engineering, was detained to identify the suspects and their contacts. He was returned to judicial custody on 20th March.
The two primary suspects identified by the NIA and Shivamogga police as the brains behind the IS module are Abdul Matheen Taha and Musavir Hussain Shazib. They have been evasive and considered to be located abroad. The Rameshwaram Cafe explosion is now being connected to both.
Around 2016, a group of young people who frequented a Dawah Center in Thirthahalli, where extremist preachers were invited gave rise to the Shivamogga ISIS module. Two local youngsters, Taha and Shazib, headed a group of around a dozen young individuals who were aligned with the ideology of ISIS during the meetings.
Since 2021, the NIA has apprehended at least ten people from the module concerning three separate incidents, an accidental bomb in an autorickshaw in Mengaluru (November 2022), trial blasts in Shivamogga (September 2022), and a contentious graffiti case in Mangaluru (2021).
The plot to recruit and radicalise youths with ties to ISIS first surfaced in December 2019, when the Tamil Nadu police launched a search for Khaja Moideen, an Islamic State-linked suspect from the state who vanished while awaiting trial for two terrorism-related charges in the state including the killing of a Hindu leader and the recruitment of youngsters for the Islamic State.
