Six months after he was allegedly gunned down in Pakistan, India is yet to receive a confirmation on the death of country’s most-wanted terrorist, Riyaz Shahbandari better know as Riyaz Bhatkal. Top intelligence and
investigating agencies continue to remain clueless regarding Riyaz, who co-founded the Indian Mujahideen — the Indian wing of the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayyaba — in the last decade along with his brother Iqbal and close aide Abdus Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqeer and master-minded major terrorist attacks in the country.
“We have no confirmation regarding Riyaz Shahbandari. We only heard that he was gunned down in Karachi in January this year. We have sought information from Pakistan but they have not responded so far. The news of his death could be fabricated and he could be alive regrouping his outfit,” said an Intelligence officer.
Riyaz’s family in Bhatkal, a coastal town in Karnataka, is surprisingly unaffected by the news of his death. “They have been leading a normal life even after the news of his death. They have not even observed the customary 40th day ritual or the purdah during which the deceased’s wife surrenders her marital jewellery,” said a police officer. Riyaz’s wife Nasuha and their three children live with his parents Ismail and Saeeda in their ancestral house. Little is also known about Tauqeer, the point-man of the Indian Mujahideen and the main conspirator behind the 2008 serial blasts in Ahmedabad. According to the Central Intelligence agencies, Tauqeer, who was last seen at the India-Nepal border with a close aide, Mujib Sheikh, who was recently arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad, is now recruiting jihadists for the Indian Mujahideen from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. “We have no news on the whereabouts of Tauqeer, Iqbal and Mohammed Ahmed Zarar alias Yasin Bhatkal, the prime suspect in the February 2010 Pune German Bakery blast case,” said the officer.