The Hyderabad city police has arrested Mohammed Abdul Majid, brother of city bomb blasts mastermind and Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami south India chief Shahid alias Bilal, and his childhood friend Mohammed Shakeel, on charges of criminal conspiracy and waging a war against the state.
Majid and Shakeel were produced before the magistrate on Friday evening and remanded to judicial custody for 14 days on Friday evening. The police charged them with indulging in subversive activities in the name of jihad.
The police said that the 19-year-old Majid was among the 15 suspects behind the smuggling of 10 kg of RDX into the country.
Majid ran a cyber café near his house in Moosarambagh area and used to interact constantly with Bilal by chatting on the Internet and over phone.
The police claimed that he had information about Bilal's activities and helped HUJI in manufacturing the August 25 bombs that exploded at the Lumbini Park amphitheatre and Gokul Chat eatery killing 43 persons and injuring 51 others.
Bilal's friend Shakeel alias Moulana (aged 25), resident of Malakpet area, worked as a driver and helped HUJI in recruiting cades. He was also involved in three other cases.
Incidentally, Bilal's elder brother Zahid is lodged in Visakhapatnam jail for his involvement in the blast at City Police Task Force office in Begumpet in October 2005.
The police said that Majid had prior knowledge about Mecca Masjid blasts on May 18 in which nine persons were killed and 58 others injured. But to create an alibi to ensure that the investigators did not doubt him, Majid got himself hospitalised a day before the May 18 blast.
He deliberately picked up a fight with some goons in the Old City and got admitted in hospital with wounds. Bilal had instructed him to do so.
Majid confessed to the police about Bilal's role in all terror activities in Hyderabad. He has not confessed his own involvement in the blasts. Though he kept in touch with Bilal through e-mail since 2004, the police could not trace the e-mail records since he had been frequently changing his e-mail addresses.