Indian court frees Nepal’s 26/11 suspect

KATHMANDU - A young Muslim from Nepal, who had been held in an Indian prison for eight months on suspicion of being involved in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, has been freed on bail, a media report here said Tuesday.

Mohammed Ghulam Bashir, a small-time trader in Nepal’s Sunsari district along the Indian border, was arrested by police in Bihar’s Katihar district earlier this year and charged with being involved in terrorist activities that culminated in the Nov 26-29, 2008 n Munbai carnage.

The high court in Patna Friday ordered the 35-year-old to be released on bail, Nepal’s Naya Patrika daily reported.

Last week, the tabloid had broken the story of the Nepali’s incarceration in Bihar’s Katihar jail after he visited his Indian in-laws to meet his wife, who had just given birth.

Alerted by the buzz that a “foreigner” had been seen in the Katihar village, police arrived at Bashir’s in-laws’ place and confiscated his passport and mobile phone for preliminary investigations.

On finding that the passport bore a visa for Pakistan, police arrested the young Muslim on the suspicion that he was a terrorist.

Bashir’s elder brother Mohammad Gulab said he was camping in Katihar to wait for his brother and bring him back to Nepal.

Since the court order came Friday, Gulab said it would reach the Katihar authorities only around Tuesday.

Bashir’s father-in-law has agreed to pay the bail and the imprisoned Nepali should be released by Wednesday, Gulab said.

Bashir’s family rejected the charges against him as baseless. According to them, Bashir, who studied Islamic religion in India’s Lucknow city, went to Pakistan to do his master’s in the subject as there were no institutions for higher Islamic studies in Nepal.