In Bhatkal, a family hopes Yasin Bhatkal is not Ahmed Siddibapa

In Bhatkal, a family hopes Yasin Bhatkal is not Ahmed Siddibapa

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, Aug 30, 2013: Bhatkal, a small town in north Karnataka, looks at every stranger with suspicion. The town’s people say they have to live with the tag of "terror factory" and partly blame the media for it. Television crews are chased away.
 
At the house where the family of Yasin Bhatkal or Ahmed Siddibapa lives, we are told to put our cameras away. As a crowd gathers, the NDTV crew manages to slip into the Siddibapa household.

 

 

 
Persuading Yasin’s father to speak is a task in itself. He says he does not want to be identified as a terrorist’s father.
 
Zarar Siddibapa tells NDTV, "We have not seen him for seven years. He was an innocent boy when he was here. He went to Dubai to set up a business and disappeared from there.
 
Those seven years have been a nightmare for the family. "We have been ostracised here. No one speaks to us these days. Our relatives don’t visit us. Everyone looks at our family with suspicion. We are dying a slow death every day," Mr Siddibapa, who is in his seventies, says.
 
He clings to the hope that the man arrested in north Bihar on Wednesday night is not his son Ahmed, who he describes as a "very nice boy when he was here." The father says, "I don’t even know if it is my son. Today we got a notice from the police that they have arrested him. I have to see him to believe it is him."
 
Bhatkal’s brother Samad, who was arrested mistakenly in 2010, lives in the same house. Mr Siddibapa said he was unnecessarily dragged into trouble.

"They held Samad as well, ruined his life, ours. Our family is suffering." Mr Siddibapa said. "Once it’s confirmed it’s my son they have caught, we will do something. I believe he is innocent and we will do whatever we can to defend him," the distraught father told us.

On Thursday evening, just hours after his arrest, Bhatkal’s uncle, in a statement, said that the family was relieved because "the truth will come out and our fears that he would be eliminated in a fake encounter have been put to rest."

Locals in Bhatkal hope they will not have to deal with another Yasin. The town desperately wants to move on. It wants to remove the terror tag it has lived with all these years. And the residents of Bhatkal hope Yasin’s arrest will bring some closure.

 

Yasin Bhatkal was last seen in Mangalore in 2008: police

The arrest of Yasin Bhatkal by the Bihar police has jolted this coastal town as there were reports of Indian Mujahideen (IM) modules being active in Mangalore and surrounding areas.

 

The arrested man had been eluding the police teams that conducted a series of raids in this city and in surrounding areas, but Yasin Bhatkal and his brother and nephew managed to evade the search in 2008. That was the last time when people saw the elusive man, who is now stated to be one of the most wanted persons in India.

That this picturesque town has operatives of terror modules owning allegiance to IM came to light in 2008 after a Mumbai police team rushed here in 2008 and raided some places in Ullal, and then Koppa in Chikmagalur district.

The police claimed at that time that they had specific inputs about the presence of Riyaz Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal and Yasin Bhatkal alias Mohammed Siddibapa.

Police teams rushed to a house in Mukkucherri in Ullal, after they received inputs about the presence of Riyaz Bhatkal, but they found Riyaz Bhatkal’s associate Mohammed Ali. Based on the information provided by him, the police raided a house in Chambugudde where Yasin Bhatkal and his associates were staying. But the police found the house locked and when they broke open the lock and entered the house, they found some explosives.

Subsequently, two more houses were searched in Subash Nagar and Haleyangadi in Mangalore but in vain. When the police got information about the Bhatkal brothers and Yasin Bhatkal being holed up in a farmhouse in Koppa in Chikmagalur, the police rushed there, but their efforts were in vain again. Before the arrival of the police teams, the Bhatkal brothers fled the place. Since then the police have not been able to trace Riyaz, Iqbal and Yasin Bhatkal.

A senior police officer, who led the raids, said that Yasin Bhatkal was suspected to be involved in many terror attacks in the country, including the blasts at Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore in 2010. “His catch is more important than Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal,” the officer said.

The police also believe that the explosives used in some blasts in New Delhi were supplied by Riyaz and Yasin Bhatkal’s associates in Udupi, Chikmagalur and Mangalore. Now they hope to find out who supplied the explosives with Yasin being arrested.

Mangalore Police Commissioner Manish Kharbikar said Yasin Bhatkal was one of the 13 persons against whom the police filed a charge-sheet in 2008. “We had then shown him absconding. We will now move the court for a warrant,” he said. The case related to the raid is being tried before a Session’s Court in Mangalore, he added.