Sufiya Madani ordered bus-burning: NIA

Sufiya, wife of Abdul Nasser Madani, and her associate Majeed Parampayi had planned and ordered the terror act of burning a Tamil Nadu State bus at Kalamassery in September, 2005, the NIA said in the chargesheet it filed in the Special CBI Court (NIA Court) of Kochi on Friday.

According to the chargesheet, LeT’s South India commander Thadiyantavide Nazeer is the first of the total 13 accused in the case. All the accused had been charged with offences including waging war against the nation, criminal conspiracy and unlawful assembly with criminal intent. Sufiya is the tenth accused in the case.

The agency dropped the name of Abdul Rahim of Parappanangadi, who was killed by security forces in Kashmir in October, 2008 along with three other Malayalee militants while trying to cross over to Pakistan, from the list of accused. Majeed is the twelfth accused in the case. The NIA told the court that three of the accused were yet to be arrested.

The chargesheet said that all the accused, except Sufiya, had met at a local mosque in Aluva near Kochi to finalize the plan for burning the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation bus. The terror act was intended as retaliation for alleged mistreatment of Madani in a Coimbatore prison, where he was lodged then in connection with the serial blasts case.

According to the NIA, the first six accused boarded the Tamil Nadu bus from the KSRTC bus station at Ernakulam on the night of September 9, 2005 while accused seven to nine followed it on motorbikes. At Kalamassery, Nazeer and others threatened the driver and conductor of the bus and got them out forcibly, it said.

The agency said that the perpetrators then drove the bus off to the HMT colony in Kalamassery and torched the bus after forcing all the passengers out. The bus was said to have been carrying 31 passengers. The petrol for setting the bus on fore was arranged by third accused Ismail alias Bomb Ismail, the chargesheet said.

The other accused in the case are Abdul Halim, Shafeeque , Sabir Buhari, Navas, Tajuddin, Nazar K alias Kummayam Nazar, Anoop alias Vedimara Anoop, Umar Farooque, and Mohammad Sabir alias Ayub. Among them, Shafeeque, Anoop and Sabir were yet to be arrested, the agency said.

The conclusions of the NIA on the case and the accused are in tune with the findings of the Kerala Police which had earlier probed it. The agency said more evidences could be added to the chargesheet as and when they would be available during the course of the trial. The proceedings in the case would continue at the NIA Court on Monday.

The NIA, which had examined 81 witnesses including some of the passengers of the bus and 60 documents, said that the accused had committed offences that came under the category of terror acts. It said the accused had waged war against the nation in association with other extremists.