The two youths suspected to be involved in the Rameshwaram Cafe blast in Bengaluru spent more than three weeks in Calcutta, shifting from Lenin Sarani to Alipore to Ekbalpore, posing as tourists or patients, officers of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said.
The agency said Mussavir Hussain Shazeb and Abdul Matheen Taha had checked into a hotel on Lenin Sarani on March 13 posing as tourists from Darjeeling.
The two checked out the next day and told the hotel staff they were going to Chennai.
The room cost them Rs 700.
NIA officers said that according to the employees of Paradise Hotel, located on the busy Lenin Sarani, close to Esplanade, there was “nothing abnormal” about the duo.
“The register shows they had checked into the hotel on March 13. They submitted Aadhaar cards that bore their photographs but the names were different. The names in the documents were Yusha Shahnawaz Patel, from Thane in Maharashtra, and Anmol Kulkarni, from Karnataka,” said an NIA officer.
After a day’s stay at the central Calcutta hotel, the two shifted to a guest house near the Alipore Bodyguard Lines on Diamond Harbour Road. The guest house has a diagnostic centre in front.
“At Garden Guest House, on Diamond Harbour Road, one of the men introduced himself as Sanju Agarwal, 36. He told the staff that he and his friend had come from Jammu and Kashmir for treatment. He also said they were to leave for Jharkhand soon,” said an NIA officer.
Sources said the two maintained a “low profile”.
“They at times went to the local market. They mostly used the staircase, we have learnt,” an officer said about the duo’s stay at Garden Guest House.
In a city like Calcutta, where there are hundreds of medical establishments, it is common for people from neighbouring states to come for treatment and stay in budget hotels and guest houses.
The duo’s third, and possibly the last, place of stay in Calcutta was a small hotel in Ekbalpore — Dream Guest House.
NIA officers said they checked into the guest house on March 25 and checked
out on March 28.
“They posed as tourists and submitted Aadhaar cards as identity documents,” the officer said.
The room cost them Rs 1,000 a day and the payment was made in cash, sources said.
The agency has collected CCTV footage from all three places where the accused stayed.
From Calcutta, Taha and Shazib went to East Midanpore.
They are wanted for allegedly planning and executing the Bengaluru cafe blast. Taha was the alleged mastermind, while Shazib allegedly placed the IED at the cafe.
