Gaya court remands terror suspects Tauseef, two others, to 4-day police custody

A Gaya court, on Friday, remanded 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case accused Tauseef Khan, nabbed in south Bihar district headquarters town of Gaya on Wednesday, and his two associates, to four-day police custody.

Tauseef was earlier produced in the court of chief judicial magistrate Ramanand Ram at Gaya, 100 km south of Patna, where the police filed a petition seeking remand of the terror suspects. Opposing the police petition, Tauseef pleaded innocence and said he was being framed.

A four-member Gujarat ATS team, which arrived at Gaya on Thursday, a day after Tauseef and his associates were arrested, is also likely to move court for permission to take the Ahmedabad serial blast case accused to Gujarat on transit remand.

In a related development, the Gaya police are preparing to register a fresh FIR, leveling sedation charges against Tauseef, Sarwar Khan and Shane Khan, with the Civil Lines police station, on the basis of documents recovered from them. The police would also investigate if any radical sleeper cell was active in Gaya.

While officials involved in the interrogation of terror suspects remained tightlipped, other sources said Tauseef had contacts in Pakistan and Nepal and he was residing in Gaya since 2009 to weave out a network of radical sleeper cells.

While working as a mathematics teacher at a private school in Gaya, Tauseef, an engineering graduate, had “prepared more than 50 students for jehad,” the sources said.

The documents recovered from them included handbills and pamphlets printed in Pakistan’s city Lahore, they added.

An officer, who is part of the interrogation team, said one of the documents recovered from the arrested persons revealed plans, finalised at a meeting in Nepal, to which Tauseef used to frequent, to carry out terror attacks.

Meanwhile, security and intelligence agencies on Friday struggled to decode the messages stored in pen drives, computer hard disks and a bunch of paper recovered from them.

“After the messages are decoded, we will be able to clinch vital clues regarding terror plans of the arrested suspects,” one of the interrogators said on the condition of anonymity.

Tauseef and Shane Khan were arrested near Rajendra Ashram at Gaya town on Wednesday.

Police said four persons used to regularly come to Vishnu Cyber Café near Rajendra Ashram and exchange information for long duration there. They would, however, refrain from producing copies of Aadhaar, which cyber café owner Anurag Basu would demand from them before allowing them to access internet.

On Wednesday, when the suspects did not produce their identity documents, Basu, who also edits vernacular monthly ‘Saf Swar’, caught two of them and handed them over to police. Two others, however, managed to escape.

Sarwar Khan, who had provided shelter to Tauseef at Sahdeo Khap village in Bodh Gaya police station area, 16 km south of Gaya, was also arrested later.