A court on Wednesday extended the police custody of the 33-year-old man from Khopta village in Uran, who was arrested for writing terror messages below the Khopta bridge, till June 17.
The accused, who was arrested on June 6, has been claiming to be mentally ill, while the police are still verifying it. “We haven’t seen any psychological abnormalities in him. We have seized his mobile phone and the marker used to write the messages. We are scrutinising his call data record to verify if he has any links with any terrorist organisation,” senior police inspector Jagdish Kulkarni, Uran police station, said.
The suspect, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, has been staying in Uran since 2005, and was working as a forklift handler. His wife had gone to Nepal for delivering their third child, when the incident happened.
Mr. Kulkarni said the accused has confessed to have written the messages and said he is sorry about it. “He has been asking forgiveness and claiming that he wrote what he saw in television. But we still have doubts about his intentions, and got his custody extended.”
He was arrested under Section 153 (A)(1)(b) (committing any act which is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities, and which disturbs or is likely to disturb the public tranquillity) of the IPC.
Some villagers, who had gone under the bridge to consume alcohol on June 2, noticed the messages and informed the police.
The messages read, “Atank ka aaka Abu Baker Al Bagdadi, duniya aur do jahan ka khoonkhar atankwadi Abu Baker Al Bagdadi, ISIS Islamic State ke ladke sabse tej’ (sic) [Abu Baker Al Baghdadi, the leader of terrorists, dangerous the world over. The boys of the Islamic State are the sharpest].” There was also a map made of Uran. Words like Hafiz Saeed, Baghdadi, Dhoni, AAP and Kejriwal were also written.