india

Updated: Feb 01, 2019 21:43 IST

The NIA on Friday arrested a man, accused in the 2006 Kozhikode twin blasts cases, from the Delhi airport after he landed from Saudi Arabia, the agency said.

It said P P Yoosaf (36), resident of Thalassery in Kerala’s Kannur district, was arrested from the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport.

He had been absconding and was chargesheeted by the National Investigation Agency in 2010 in the case.

On January 24, the central agency had similarly arrested another accused Mohammed Ashar from the same airport after he returned from Saudi Arabia. “The cases pertain to the twin improvised explosive device (IED) blasts that occurred at the KSRTC and mofussil bus stands in Kozhikode (Calicut) city on March 3, 2006 causing injuries to two persons besides damage to property,” an NIA spokesperson said.

He added that NIA had taken over the investigation of the cases in December, 2009 from the state police and filed a chargesheet against eight accused, including Yoosaf, in 2010 under sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, IPC and Explosive Substances Act.

The investigation found that “Yoosaf had participated in the criminal conspiracy hatched by the prime accused T Naseer, Safas and others to carry out IED blasts in Kozhikode City in protest over the denial of bail to Muslim accused persons involved in the 2003 Marad communal riots”, the agency said. Yoosaf, it said, along with the recently arrested Ashar had “assisted” Naseer in preparing the IEDs and had “planted” the same at bus stands in Kozhikode city.

The spokesperson said Yoosaf will be produced before a special court in Delhi on Saturday to obtain transit remand to take him to Kochi and produce him before the jurisdictional special court at Ernakulam in Kerala.