Bengaluru, Jan 6(India Today): A day before the Bengaluru police produced Islamic State (IS) sympathiser Mehdi Masroor Biswas before a local court, the city's Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Hemanth Nimbalkar was transferred out of the police wing.
Though the transfer is being termed "routine" because 21 other IPS officers were also transferred the same day, the timing has raised many eyebrows.
Nimbalkar was among the two IPS officers who raided Mehdi's Bengaluru home in the early hours of December 13 after the expose by Britain's Channel 4 TV.
Sources said the officer concerned was aware of the impending transfer. Nimbalkar was appointed the Joint Commissioner of Police of Bengaluru in July 2013. He has now been appointed as the Deputy Inspector General of Police (Karnataka State Fire & Emergency Services). His position has been taken up by IPS officer M. Chandrashekar.
"Most of the investigation into the case has been completed. Mehdi has shared all possible information with us. The particular officer's transfer will not affect the case in any way," a source in the home ministry pointed out.
An upright officer known for confronting the political establishment directly, Nimbalkar has been a victim of the system in the past.
However, those setbacks did not deter him from taking up Mehdi's case and nabbing him within 24 hours after he was exposed as the one operating the @ShamiWitness Twitter handle.
The Bengaluru police is expected to file a chargesheet in the Mehdi Biswas case shortly after consulting other agencies involved in the probe, including the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
A senior Bengaluru police officer who is in charge of the investigation told MAIL TODAY, "Our part of the job is almost over. Mehdi has shared vital information. We have thoroughly examined his tweets and direct messages and there is sufficient information to prove that we are on the right track. But we are waiting for inputs from other investigation agencies in order to make this a watertight case." The NIA has reportedly not yet given its final opinion on the case.
Awaiting inputs "Some consultation is taking place at the international level involving the security agencies of India, the UK and a few nations in West Asia. Specific aspects related to the case need to be ascertained. Once these inputs are made available to us, we will file the chargesheet," the officer pointed out.
According to rules, a chargesheet must be filed within 90 days of the arrest of an accused. In the present case, it has not even been a month since the arrest of Mehdi. In case the police fail to file a chargesheet within the stipulated time, Mehdi will be eligible for bail.
The Bengaluru police are also awaiting information from investigation agencies of Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Some of Mehdi's followers on Twitter were from these states and, based on Mehdi's interaction with them on Twitter, the police had categorised a few of them as "suspicious". "These suspects might have been influenced by Mehdi and his tweets. We had asked the police of the respective states to provide us complete information about these followers. That is awaited," a source in the Bengaluru police said.
Suspicion The police had directly interacted with some of these "suspicious" followers and cleared a few names. "In case, these followers admit that Mehdi had indeed tried to influence them to sympathise with the Islamic State or join the terror network, it will strengthen our chargesheet against him," the sources added.