ATS team to grill kin of Riyaz Bhatkal

Bhatka, July 18 : Even as Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) personnel fanned out across the country to gather clues in the Mumbai blasts case, none of them grilled Riyaz Bhatkal's relatives here till Sunday evening. They won't do so until they find evidence that somebody trained by Indian Mujahideen founder Riyaz and his brother Iqbal from Bhatkal was involved," said a central intelligence official. There's no use looking for the brothers here as they're not in the country," said the official on condition of anonymity.

He said: "Maharashtra ATS teams are in Aurangabad and Gujarat collecting and collating evidence. If they find any connection to Bhatkal, they may come here. We have been keeping a watch on Riyaz's parents' house for a long time. No one from ATS visited their house till Sunday."

Sources in the police department said there are a couple of Riyaz-trained operatives in Bhatkal and they're being closely watched. They are police informers but haven't provided anything on Riyaz's whereabouts or his plans. If the ATS team comes here, it could be for them," sources said.

Riyaz, a diploma holder in engineering, was running a construction business in Ullal area of Mangalore till October 2008, when the IM support cell was busted. Bhatkal police say Riyaz vanished from the police radar a couple of weeks before that. He was in Bhatkal during the Ramzan period (2008) when his third child was born. His wife Nasuha still lives in Bhatkal with Riyaz's aged parents. His elder brother Iqbal's wife, her three children and elder sister Zabian with her four children live in Bhatkal.

Riyaz's elder brother Iqbal, a civil engineer and also a hakim at Bhatkal, later moved to Mangalore. When both co-founded the IM, they were known as 'Bada Bhai and 'Chota Bhai' by operatives, say police.