IM Founder Yasin Bhatkal To Be Sentenced Today

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) today said that they would be pressing death penalty, in court, for the five members of the banned terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM), including for its founder Yasin Bhatkal, who were convicted by a Hyderabad special court for orchestrating the Dilsukhnagar twin blasts of 2013.

A Hyderabad court is expected to announce the quantum of sentence on Monday, and it would be a tug between death and life sentence.

Speaking to the media outside court premises, the NIA Director General said that they would be seeking death penalty for all the five accused, including founder of the terror cell Yasin Bhatkal. The fifth accused, Zia-ur-Rehman alias Waqas, is from Pakistan, and the NIA would seek death for him, too, he said. There was also a sixth accused who had eluded the cops, and was probably offshores. The conviction would send a strong message to other IM members still at large, the DG added.

On February 21, 2013, two bomb blasts occurred simultaneously at Dilsukhnagar market in Hyderabad, killing 18 and injuring 131 people. A pregnant woman, too, was among the dead.

In its charge sheet, the NIA had stated that the accused received instructions from Pakistan-based Riyaz Bhatkal. Both Riyaz and Yasin Bhatkal were giving instructions to the terrorists through video logs.

Days before the attack, the accused had conducted a mock bombing drill atop a hillock on the outskirts of Hyderabad, it said.

The NIA also said that the IM operatives had received Rs. 1 lakh from a hawala operator on the directions of Riyaz Bhatkal in Pakistan.

"The IM is receiving financial and material assistance from the Pakistan Intelligence agency ISI, backed by the Government of Pakistan, which is also providing shelter to several absconding members of the IM in Karachi and at other places in Pakistan," the NIA claimed.

Hyderabad desperately awaits to know the fate of the five terrorists who had wrecked havoc in the streets of Hyderabad.