Informer who had escaped from NIA custody returns home

NEW DELHI: An 'informer' associated with Indian Mijahideen (IM), who had escaped from the custody of National Investigation Agency (NIA) last week, has mysteriously resurfaced at his home in Bihar. Mehre Alam, who was being questioned in connection with IM's Ranchi module and was helping NIA trace Patna blasts suspect Haidar Ali when he escaped from NIA custody, came back home to Sidhauli, his village in Bihar's Darbhanga district, on Friday.

NIA sources said they will once again haul him to the agency office and question him on absconding IM operatives. His escape from Muzaffarpur on October 31 had become an embarrassment for NIA even though the agency maintained that Alam was not involved in the blasts and merely knew some of the suspects and was helping investigations.

It is not yet known where Alam escaped to and hid in the past one week.

NIA sources said Alam was a friend of Patna blasts mastermind Tehsin Akhtar and Haidar Ali and the agency had sought his cooperation in tracing the suspects much before the Patna blasts. "Tehsin had met Alam a few times four years back at the library of Salfia Madrasa where Alam was studying his Hifz-ul-Quran. Tehsin, as part of the Darbhanga module, had been trying to recruit operatives by chatting up young Muslim men in such libraries. Of late, Haidar Ali had kept in constant touch with Alam and used to meet him whenever he came to Darbhanga from Ranchi," said a senior officer privy to investigation details.

It is in this connection that NIA had questioned Alam on October 23, four days before the Patna blasts, and then asked him to appear in its Bodh Gaya office on October 29 as a "witness" to help investigations.

After the Patna blasts, when Alam came to know that an NIA team was camping in Patna, he reached the city and met NIA officers on schedule. The next day, he was taken to Muzaffarpur, where Haidar Ali was suspected to be hiding in the house of one Mohammed Ali. However, the hunt proved futile. But before NIA could take Alam back to Patna for further questioning, he escaped on the pretext of attending to nature's call.

His return after a week has come as a relief to NIA also because Alam's father Mehmood had accused the agency of making his son disappear and fixing him in the case immediately after his escape.