Bengaluru cafe blast: NIA declares Rs 20 lakh reward on any leads on suspects

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has declared a reward of Rs 20 lakh for any leads on the two suspects involved in the Bengaluru cafe blast case. The suspects, Musaavir Hussain Shazib, the alleged planter of the IED in the cafe, and Abdul Matheen Taha, part of the conspiracy, are already on the wanted list for a 2020 terrorism case.

On Thursday, NIA said it had arrested a 30-year-old man in Karnataka for “providing logistical support” for a bomb blast executed at The Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru on March 1. It is the first arrest in the case so far.

The NIA, which carried out multiple searches across Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, said that one of the persons who had been searched, Muzammil Shareef, had been placed under arrest. Shareef’s house in Chikmagalur was among the 12 locations searched by the NIA in Karnataka.

The NIA said that it has identified the man as Mussavir Hussain Shazib, a missing suspect linked to as many as four terror cases in Karnataka since 2020. Shazib and another associate, Abdul Matheen Taha, both wanted since 2020, have been named as accused number 1 and 2 in the Rameshwaram cafe blast case, The Indian Express reported.