Karnataka High Court denies bail to Abdul Saboor of Bhatkal

BENGALURU: Indian Mujahideen’s member, who had allegedly conspired with others to carry out series of blasts across the country during the then US President Barack Obama’s visit to India in 2015, was denied bail by the Karnataka High Court. The accused who were involved in a number of terror acts at different places, including Bengaluru, Delhi, Pune and Hyderabad had conspired to spread terror during Obama’s visit as chief guest for Republic Day. Abdul Saboor(25), native of Bhatkal, who was denied bail on Monday was acting on the instructions of Riyaz Bhatkal, who is now in Pakistan. He had procured and supplied explosives to other members to carry out blasts, investigators found. Chetan Desai, the government advocate, presented all these findings by the police to the High Court in his objections filed against the release of Saboor on bail. However, the counsel of the accused denied the same. Hearing the arguments of both the sides, the division bench of Justice B S Patil and Justice B V Nagarathna dismissed the bail, saying that there is a prima facie case of waging war against nation. There was possibility of damage to lives and properties if they are not prevented from their activities, the bench noted. Abdul Saboor approached the High Court for relief, as the NIA Special Court in city had denied him bail on July 27, 2016. Saboor was arrested at Bhatkal on January 8, 2015 by the Special Investigating Team (SIT) in relation to case registered by the Cubbon Park Police with regard to bomb blast on Church Street in city on December 28, 2014. Based on the clue, the SIT got to know that Saboor travelled with Syed Ismail Afaque (A-1) to Bengaluru in Karwar-Bengaluru Express train on January 7, 2015 and reached their residence at Cox Town in Bengaluru city the next day. Police followed and arrested them. The accused had stored huge quantity of explosives at Saboor’s house in Bhatkal and asked Saddam Hussein (A-3) to keep vigil on it. Later, Hussein was arrested. Thereafter, the case was registered at Pulikeshinagar against accused Syed, Abdul and Saddam under Sections 4, 5 and 6 of Explosive Substances Act, Sections 120-B and 121-A of the IPC and Sections 3, 13, 10 and 18 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. During investigation, the accused revealed that they had collected huge quantity of explosives to carry out bomb blasts at different places during Obama’s  visit to India.