Three terror plots in State over 12 years now linked by common accused and unidentified ‘online handlers’

Investigative agencies probing The Rameshwaram Cafe blast case are now keen to unmask the identity of an “online handler”, suspected to be based abroad, who allegedly indoctrinated and coached the “Tirthahalli module” led by Abdul Matheen Taaha, allegedly behind the cafe blast and strategised the terror attack at the cafe as well.

Investigative agencies probing The Rameshwaram Cafe blast case are now keen to unmask the identity of an “online handler”, suspected to be based abroad, who allegedly indoctrinated and coached the “Tirthahalli module” led by Abdul Matheen Taaha, allegedly behind the cafe blast and strategised the terror attack at the cafe as well.

Interestingly, the cafe blast case has now been linked to two earlier terror conspiracy cases dating back to 2012 and 2020 in Karnataka, with common accused in these cases. In all three cases, the modules had a “online handler”, suspected to be based out of Pakistan and who is unidentified.

Agencies believe that identifying the handler may hold the key to multiple terror plots in the State across 12 years. Agencies are not ruling out the possibility that the handler in all three cases could be the same person. However, senior officials said that there was no confirmation on this, and the handlers could well be different persons.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday arrested Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, 35, a resident of Hubballi and an ex-convict in a 2012 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror conspiracy case.

NIA claimed Mirza, who served a sentence of five years in the 2012 case and came out of jail in 2017, introduced Taaha to “an online handler through an encrypted email” in 2018. 

Taaha’s name first emerged on the radar of the security agencies in 2020 when they busted an Islamic State (IS) inspired Al Hind terror module in Bengaluru. The module allegedly was in advanced preparations to set up camps in the jungles of South India to launch an IS-like insurgency.

“Taaha was one of the main accused in the case, along with his associate Mussavir Hussain, who planted the bomb at The Rameshwaram Cafe. Both gave the slip to agencies and were absconding till they were arrested in April 2024 by the NIA. Our investigations revealed that Taaha was the link between the module and a Pakistan-based online handler, with whom the module used to chat on a laptop using encrypted communication tools. Given that NIA has now found out that Mirza introduced him to an online handler in 2018, chances are high that the same handler was coaching the Al Hind module through Taaha,” said a senior police official who probed the Al Hind module case.