Rameshwaram Cafe attackers planned blast at BJP office on Ram Mandir inauguration

The accused in the Rameshwaram Cafe blast case had planned to attack the state BJP office in Bengaluru on January 22 this year, the day of Ram Mandir inauguration in Ayodhya, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said in its chargesheet.

On Monday, the NIA chargesheeted four accused - Mussavir Hussain Shazib, Abdul Matheen Ahmed Taaha, Maaz Muneer Ahmed and Muzammil Shareef - in the Rameshwaram Cafe blast case.

According to the NIA investigation, Taha and Shazib, the man who planted the bomb at the cafe, had been absconding since 2020 after the Islamic State's al-Hind module was busted.

Extensive searches by the NIA had led to their arrest in West Bengal 42 days after the Rameshwaram Cafe blast.

The two men, hailing from Karnataka's Shivamogga district, were Islamic State radicals and radicalised gullible Muslim youth, including Maaz Muneer Ahmed and Muzammil Shareef.

Taaha and Shazib had used fraudulently obtained Indian SIM cards and Indian bank



accounts, and also used various Indian and Bangladeshi identity documents downloaded from the dark web.

Taaha and Shazib were funded by their handler through cryptocurrencies. The funds were used by the accused to perpetrate various acts of violence in Bengaluru, which included a failed IED attack at the BJP office in Malleshwaram, Bengaluru, on the day of Pran Pratishtha ceremony at Ayodhya.

After the failed IED attack, the duo had planned the Rameshwaram Cafe blast, the NIA said.

At least nine people were injured in the IED blast at Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru's Brookfield area on March 1 this year.

Investigations further revealed that Taaha had been introduced by an ex-convict, Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, to Mohammed Shaheed Faisal, an absconder in the Lashkar-e-Taiba Bengaluru conspiracy case. Taaha then introduced Faisal, his handler, to Mehaboob Pasha, an accused in the Al-Hind ISIS module case, and to Khaja Mohideen, Amir of ISIS South India, and later also to Maaz Muneer Ahmed.