Telengana police have reportedly arrested a 30-year-old man in connection with the 2014 bomb blast on Church Street in Bengaluru. The arrest is said to have been happened on January 23.
The suspect was arrested after he allegedly confessed to have kept the improvised explosive device, reported The Indian Express.
The suspect, identified as Rafiq alias Alemzeb Afridi, is also allegedly responsible for the July 2008 blast in Ahmedabad carried out by Indian Mujahideen and Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) cadre. The incident had killed 56 people.
He was arrested near his home in Doddanagamangala near Parappana Agrahara in south-east Bengaluru a day after the NIA arrested 14 ISIS sympathisers across the country.
Rafiq, who has been working a mechanic in Bengaluru for three years, is allegedly associated with a splinter group of SIMI. He came under the radar of security agencies after it was suspected that he was making plans to flee with his wife from Bengaluru following the ISIS-related arrests, reported The Indian Express.
The NIA had also released a video of the suspect in the Church Street bombing, reported The Indian Express.
During the arrest, Rafiq allegedly stabbed a constable and tried to mutilate himself.
The motive behind the blast is yet to be ascertained. However, officials feel that it could be because of the arrest of the suspected online ISIS propagandist Mehdi Masroor Biswas, who operated the Twitter handle @ShamiWitness. The NIA is likely to take custody of Rafiq.
This is an aggregated report from The Indian Express.
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