JOIN USOne of the suspects in the 2005 attack on the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the first ever terror attack in Bengaluru, has been arrested in Tripura.
Based on inputs by the Karnataka police, the Tripura police detained Habib Mia, 37, from Jogendranagar area near Agartala on Friday. Mia will be brought to Bengaluru for interrogation. “The local police in Tripura detained Habib based on our information. He will be produced before a local court there. Our team will approach the local court with a body warrant seeking his custody. Based on the court’s direction, he will be brought to Bengaluru for interrogation,” City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood told DH. However, Sood did not specify when Habib would be brought to the city.
The attack took place on December 28, 2005. Prof Munish Chandra Puri of IIT Delhi was killed on the spot and Dr Vijay Chandru, a senior scientist of IISc, Dr Pankaj Gupta of IIT, Vijay Patil, a lab assistant at the Dhanvanthri Kshetra, Cadilla Pharmaceuticals Laboratory on the campus and Dr Sangeetha were injured.
Abu Hamza, an LeT operative, fired at Puri and others around 7 pm when delegates were heading to dinner after attending an international conference on Operations Research: Applications in Infrastructure Development, organised by the Operations Research Society of India at the JN Tata Auditorium on the IISc campus.
Hamza, a Pakistani national, is still at large and is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.
Sabahuddin (21, then), a native of Bihar and a student of Brindavan College in Bengaluru, had assisted Hamza in executing the operation. Hamza and Sabahuddin had hired an autorickshaw and had surveyed the IISc campus on December 27, 2005.
On December 28, 2005, Hamza alone reached the campus by autorickshaw. He opened fire and fled from there. He went to Uttar Pradesh, Nepal, Bangladesh and finally reached Pakistan.
The police arrested Mohammed Riaz-ur-Rehman, Afzar Pasha, Noorulla Khan, Mohammed Irfan, Nazim Uddin alias Munna and Mehboob Ibrahim Saab Chopdar in 2006 and submitted charge sheet to the court.