NEW DELHI: Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative Yasin Bhatkal has now becomes a Tihar Jail protest leader.
According to a report published in Hindustan Times, Bhatkal, who was lodged in Tihar prison has made new friends and had sat on a two-day hunger strike last week demanding that jail inmates be allowed continued use of the induction cookers.
The report said that in December, the Tihar Jail Administration allowed the prisoners to use induction cooker to heat or warm milk and water. The administration withdrawn the cookers after complaints that the prisoners are using these cookers in violation of the rules to make the food. In jails, prisoners were not allowed to cook and bring food from the jail kitchen.
Bhatkal, who started the protest has made friends with Delhi gangster Ravi Kapoor, who is accused of killing journalist Soumya Viswanathan and executive Jigisha Ghosh. Another Indian Mujahideen operative Asadullah Haadi, some members of the Cheenu gang of North-Eastern Delhi and Ravi Kapoor, supported Bhatkal in the hunger strike, who was at the forefront of the protest.
“For two days, they refused to eat. It was only after talking to many prisoners and explaining to them the problems that they left Bhatkal alone and later he also withdrew the protest. Later, we realised Bhatkal was instigating them,” the prison officer said.
Bhatkal was kept under surveillance in a high security cell but still manages to interact with other inmates during the day when the doors of the cell are opened as per norms.
A resident from Karnataka’s Bhatkal town, Yasin Bhatkal’s real name is Mohammed Ahmad Siddibapaa, 36. Bhatkal, an accused in many terror attacks including Dilsukhnagar bomb blast on Hyderabad, was arrested in 2013.
In the case of the 2013 blasts in Hyderabad, the court in 2016 sentenced five accused including Yasin Bhatkal to death. The deadly explosion in DilsukhNagar was carried out on February 21, 2013 in which 18 people were killed.