Madani’s wife played key role in terror act: NIA

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) told the Special CBI Court-II, Kochi on Wednesday that Sufiya, wife of Islamist leader and PDP chairman Abdul Nasser Madani, had played a key role in the conspiracy behind the burning of the Tamil Nadu State bus at Kalamassery near here on September 9, 2005. Sufiya, tenth accused in the case registered by the Kerala Police, was arrested on December 17 but was released on bail four days later on stringent conditions.

While the court was considering a plea from Sufiya that a relaxation be granted in the bail condition that she should not leave Ernakulam district, the NIA, which took over the case towards the end of December from the Kerala Police, opposed her plea. The agency said she was a key accused in the case with significant role in the conspiracy that led to the terror act of burning the bus. The NIA opposed the plea, pointing out that she could possibly influence the witnesses and try to destroy evidences if the bail condition was relaxed.

In the petition, Sufiya said that she wanted a relaxation in the condition so that she could be beside her husband who was undergoing treatment at the Medical College Hospital in Thiruvananthapruam. According to some other accused in the case, Sufiya had planned, funded and got executed the terror act as a revenge against the Tamil Nadu police for torturing her husband in the Coimbatore prison while he was lodged there.

Thadiyantavide Nazeer, said to be the South India commander of the LeT, is the first accused in the bus-burning case. Nazeer and some other accused in the case had told the NIA that they had had long telephonic conversations with Sufiya before and after committing the terror act Kalamassery on the night of September 9, 2005. It is also said that Nazeer had held religious classes in the upstairs of Sufiya’s Purdah shop in Kochi.

The Karnataka Police had last month asked Sufiya and her husband to reach Bangalore for questioning in connection with the serial blasts in the Garden City in 2008. Apart from the connections Nazeer and his accomplices in the serial bomb attacks with Madani and his wife, Sufiya had reportedly been the local guardian of the daughter of Abdul Sattar alias Sainuddin aka Sattar Bhai, who had made the bombs which went off in Bangalore.

The Kerala Police had arrested Sufiya from her house in Kochi on December 17 amidst high drama after the Kerala High Court dismissed her anticipatory bail application. After four days, however, the District and Sessions Court, Ernakulam granted bail to her after she was admitted to the Medical College Hospital, Alappuzha with multiple health complaints.

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