A file photo of The Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru. The reconstruction of the crime was recorded on video by the sleuths, on August 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Shreyas H S
Sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) reconstructed the crime scene with the alleged bomber at The Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru, where a low-intensity IED blast left nine injured on March 1, 2024.
On August 5, NIA sleuths brought the alleged bomber Mussavir Hussain Shazib to the cafe amidst tight security. He was made to wear a dress similar to the one he was seen wearing when he allegedly placed the IED near the handwash and left. In the original CCTV footage from the cafe, the man’s face has been obscured by a face mask and a cap.
The suspect was made to wear a cap and a face mask during the reconstruction. This reconstruction of the crime was recorded on video by the sleuths.
The video recording of the reconstruction and the original CCTV footage will be submitted for forensic analysis for a gait analysis of the persons in the two videos to check whether the persons in the two videos were the same, sources said. A positive match will give the NIA forensic evidence that the bomber was indeed Mussavir Hussain Shazib.
A similar procedure and gait analysis was used to forensically confirm the identity of the person who killed editor-activist Gauri Lankesh, killed in Bengaluru on September 5, 2017.
Security agencies have found a cap that was allegedly worn by the man who placed the bomb, around 3 km away from the cafe, where he reportedly changed his clothes. NIA has hair samples from the cap that are being matched with that of Mussavir Hussain through a DNA test.
The NIA had identified the alleged bomber as Mussavir Hussain, a terror accused on the run, based on CCTV footage from a bus stand where he had removed the face mask. After chasing the suspect over a month, NIA had arrested him and his associate Abdul Matheen Taaha from their hideout near Kolkata on April 12, 2024. The duo allegedly set up the Thirthahalli terror module that was involved in multiple terror cases in Karnataka.
The module was behind the 2022 Mangaluru cooker blast case as well, apart from a terror graffiti case in Mangaluru and a trial blast in Shivamogga. The duo were suspects in the Al Hind terror module case of 2020 where radicalised persons from Bengaluru and Tamil Nadu were trying to establish an Islamic State (IS)-like insurgency from the jungles of south India.
