NIA officials visited Kadapa Central Jail and arrested Saira Banu, wife of Abu Bakar Siddiqui, who was earlier detained in Rayachoti. Her arrest adds a new layer to the ongoing investigation into multiple terror-related cases across South India.
On July 1, Tamil Nadu Intelligence Bureau officers arrested Abu Bakar Siddiqui and Mohammad Ali from Rayachoti. At the same time, the wives of both men were detained by the Annamayya district police and placed under remand in Kadapa Central Jail.
Since their arrest, Abu Bakar’s wife Saira Banu and Mohammad Ali’s wife Shameem have remained in judicial custody. On Wednesday, NIA officials took Saira Banu into their custody for further questioning under a PT warrant.
She will be interrogated in Vijayawada for a week regarding her role in the activities of the terror network. Officials are focusing on possible connections between her and key suspects involved in earlier bombing cases.
Abu Bakar and Mohammad Ali had been living under false identities in the Kothapalli area of Rayachoti for nearly three decades, working as saree sellers to conceal their real backgrounds.
Both were wanted in several major terror incidents, including the 1995 parcel bomb case, the Madurai bomb attack plot targeting BJP leader LK Advani’s rath yatra, the Malleswaram BJP office blast in Karnataka, the Tamil Nadu and Kerala serial blasts, and the 2012 murder of Vellore-based doctor Arvind Reddy.
