After 30 years on the run, terror suspect in 2013 Bengaluru BJP office blast case arrested in Andhra Pradesh by TN cops

Indian Express

3 days ago

A shadowy and elusive member of the proscribed Al Ummah terrorist outfit in South India, who eluded the police for 30 years despite being linked to high-profile terrorism cases like the 2013 BJP office blast case in Bengaluru, has been arrested by the Tamil Nadu Police in Andhra Pradesh.
Abubakar Siddique, who is in his late 50s, was arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in Annamaya district of Andhra Pradesh, the Tamil Nadu police said in an official statement on Monday. The Tamil Nadu CB-CID police had announced a reward of ₹ 5 lakh for his arrest in 2013 after he was linked to a series of attacks on BJP and right-wing leaders in the state.
Siddique is reportedly a foreign-trained terrorist operative and the alleged brains behind Al Ummah-linked attacks in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka since 1995. He is also named as accused number 19 in the chargesheet for the 2013 BJP office blast case in Bengaluru, where the trial is currently underway. The incident, where an IED left on a motorcycle parked opposite the BJP office exploded, had left 16 people injured.
Siddique, who hails from Nagore in Tamil Nadu, was arrested with an associate, Mohammed Ali of Tirunelveli. They 'were absconding after planning various bomb blasts and religious killings in Tamil Nadu since 1995', the TN ATS said.
Siddique is also linked to the 1995 blast at the Hindu Munnani office in Chennai's Chintadripet, a parcel bomb blast case at the house of Nagore Thangam Muthukrishnan, and the 1999 blasts at seven places in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, including the Chennai police commissioner's office.
He is also accused in the 2011 Madurai Thirumangalam Advani Rath Yatra pipe bomb blast case and the 2012 Vellore doctor Arvind Reddy murder case. Siddique's accomplice, Ali, is accused of planting bombs at seven places in Tamil Nadu and Kerala in 1999.
'Both of them are remanded in judicial custody by the Tamil Nadu Anti-Terrorism Squad as per the arrest warrant issued by the Chennai court,' the state police said on July 1.
Siddique's name had emerged as a key player in terrorism plots in multiple investigations between 1995 to 2024, but the police had failed to track him down as he allegedly used covert tactics to interact with the people directly involved in the attacks.
Abubakar Siddique, who holds a master's degree in literature, was at the top of the leadership pyramid for the conspiracy to attack the BJP office in Bengaluru, and was the possible financier and the key to bringing together two factions of the Al Ummah, according to the city police.
The 2014 arrest of Parvai Basha, the alleged supplier of explosives for the BJP office blast in Bengaluru, and the 2013 arrests of Police Fakrudeen, Panna Ismail, and Bilal Malik, three alleged perpetrators of the blast–– all linked to Al Ummah—had revealed Siddique as a key figure in the BJP office bomb plot.
In 2013, sources in the Karnataka Police had said that Siddique had been missing from the police radar for nearly 16 years. Siddique had claimed to have trained with a terror group in Afghanistan during his interactions with the men he trained, police sources said
The Bengaluru blast investigation allegedly revealed that Siddique was a key stakeholder in the Tamil Nadu-based Charitable Trust for Minorities, whose funds were accessed by Kichan Buhari, Fakrudeen and others to prepare and plan for the BJP office blast.
In its chargesheet in the case, the Bengaluru police stated that the Charitable Trust for Minorities provided as much as Rs 1.5 lakh, which was used in the funding of the blast. Siddique has been cited as a key mover behind the trust. Siddique has been named as 'Siddique Bhai'—one among 20 participants in the conspiracy—in the chargesheet.
The police investigation allegedly revealed that Siddique motivated and guided Fakrudeen and Malik to execute the April 17, 2013, attack at the BJP office. The investigations also allegedly revealed that it was Siddique who taught Fakruddin to make IEDs.
The IED for the BJP office blast was allegedly prepared at a hideout near Chittoor. The directive to target the BJP office in Bengaluru was allegedly given by Siddique.
'Siddique travelled and communicated in a manner where he would be untraceable. This means he has been trained in covert terrorist operations. We think he may be linked to an external terrorist group,' a police source had said in 2013.
Siddique has been represented in court documents as a speaker of multiple languages, including Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Urdu, and English.