Rameshwaram Cafe Blast Case: Accused Arrested From Digha But The Suspected ISIS Terrorists Had Stayed At A Hotel in Kolkata For A Day, A Month After The Blast

The two suspected ISIS terrorists, prime accused in the March 1 Bengaluru Rameshwaram Cafe blast had stayed at a humble hotel at Lenin Sarani in Kolkata for a day in March 2024, almost a fortnight since the blast. Both Adbul Matheen Taha and Mussavir Hussain Shazib were arrested by Bengal police in a joint operation along with Central Intelligence Agencies on Friday, in the wee hours of the morning, from a hotel in Dighat, East Midnapore, some 190 km away from Kolkata. National Investigation Agency (NIA) pursuing the matter since the blast in which nine people were injured, had issued a lookout notice and a prize reward against the accused. Investigation reveals that the duo had stayed at the Kolkata hotel for a day, checked in on March 13, and checked out a day later. They had used fake identity proof during their check-in. The hotel register shows that fake Aadhaar cards in the name of Anmol Kulkarni and Yusha Shahnawaz Patel were used by the duo, showing Darjeeling as the place they were coming from and Chennai as their next destination.

The hotel register copy has been seized by police, however, the CCTV footage hasn’t been recovered as yet, since they arrived there almost a month ago, the data from the footage storage hard drive could have been overwritten automatically in the cycle of one month. The investigation is on to trace down the other places they possibly have had stayed in the interim period since their check out from the Lenin Sarani hotel in Kolkata on March 14 and the subsequent arrest from a hotel in Digha, almost a month later on April 12, 2024. Interestingly, they used different sets of identity proof documents for their check-in into the hotel in Digha. Investigation so far, indicates that the two prime accused could be part of a larger module and might have stayed at different places and hideouts to avoid catching the attention of the enforcement agencies.

Sources within Bengal police claim, that the intelligence input was shared with East Midnapore police on Thursday evening, and the operation to the nab the suspected terrorists was executed within two hours after the final intelligence came early on Friday morning. According to NIA, while Shazib is suspected to have planted the IED inside the cafe, Taha is suspected to be the mastermind behind the cafe blast. The duo were brought to Kolkata and produced before the NIA court, sent to five days of transit remand. NIA, before the court claimed that they had planted the IED near the wash basin of the Cafe utility area.