Mangaluru Police pick up IM operative at MIA based on look out notice

MANGALURU: A day long vigil based on a look out notice issued by Bengaluru City Police saw their counterparts here nab another suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative from Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) at Kenjar here late on Saturday. Police named the suspected IM operative arrested and handed over to Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Bengaluru City Police as Riyaz Ahmed, 34, married and working in construction company in Dubai.He had come to Bhatkal some time in December.
Sources in Mangaluru City Police who monitored this development told TOI that a team from Bengaluru City Police headed by Omkaraiah, assistant commissioner of police too was in the city based on credible information that Riyaz was scheduled to take an 11.25pm Jet Airways flight to Dubai. Wanting to avoid a showdown, police waited till such time that he cleared immigration and moved in on him minutes before he was to board the flight. Riyaz put up no resistance, sources pointed.
Riyaz was handed over to the CCB team who first took him to jurisdictional Bajpe police station where a mention was made that he was being detained for questioning and subsequently taken to Bhatkal as part of the ongoing investigations. R Dilip, Superintendent of Police, Uttara Kannada who neither confirmed nor denied the arrival of CCB team to Bhatkal with Riyaz, told TOI, "It will not be fair on my part to comment on the investigations by the CCB."
The arrest of Riyaz comes close on the heels of Bengaluru City Police arresting three alleged IM operatives, along with a cache of explosives. Riyaz too is a resident of Bhatkal. The three men arrested earlier in a joint operation by CCB and Internal Security Division, on Thursday, in two simultaneous raids in Cox Town in east Bengaluru and Bhatkal, too hail from Bhatkal. Riyaz was picked up on information extracted from the trio during the interrogation in police custody.