Key suspects in Rameshwaram Cafe blast sent to NIA custody for 10 days

After their arrest from a hotel near Kolkata in West Bengal on Friday, the NIA team had produced the two before a special court and secured a transit remand. Abdul Mateen Taha and Mussavir Hussain Shazib were kept overnight at the interrogation cell at the Forensic Science Laboratory in Madiwala and taken to the St John’s Hospital for medical examination on Friday morning after which they were produced before the magistrate.

Abdul Mateen Taha and Mussavir Hussain Shazib had stayed in East Medinipore district for the last 12 days and had kept changing hotels every 2-3 days including Hotel Paradise on Lenin Sarai at Kolkata. They used Hindu names such as Sanjay Agarwal, Uday Das, Yashu Patil, Vignesh, Amol Kulkarni, etc., to hide their identities. They had claimed to be from Jharkhand and Tripura while booking the hotel rooms.

On March 12, they had checked into Hotel Paradise on Lenin Sarai in Kolkata under the names of Anmol Kulkarni from Kalaburagi and Yusha Shahnawaz Patel from Thane in Maharashtra. They had first written the name Vignesh and scratched it out. They had claimed that they were from Darjeeling and were heading to Chennai.

The duo also stayed at Garden Guest House on Diamond Harbour Road in Kolkata under the name of Sanjay Agarwal and claimed that they were on their way to Jharkhand. Here, they did not use the lift even once and always preferred to take the stairs.

Abdul Mateen Taha and Mussavir Hussain Shazib also stayed at Dream Guest House in Iqbalpur between March 25 and 28 posing as tourists and made payments towards room rent by cash. They checked into Ayush International Hotel in Digha on April 10 and were staying in Room No. 404 on the third floor from where they were caught. The NIA officials had booked a room right opposite theirs and, in the wee hours on Friday, caught the duo along with the West Bengal police.