Maudany’s wife charged in bus burning case

KOCHI - Sufiya Maudany, wife of jailed Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Abdul Nazir Maudany, was among 13 people charged Friday by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) with waging war against the nation in the 2005 Kalamassery bus burning case.

The chargesheet was filed at the special NIA court here that said Sufiya, along with another person identified as P. Majeed, had taken the lead to see the crime was conducted as a mark of protest against the Tamil Nadu government for ill-treating Maudany, who was then lodged in the Coimbatore jail, official sources said.

Sufiya is the 10th accused in the case that was earlier being investigated by the Kerala Police. She was arrested Dec 18 last year and was released on bail Dec 23 by a Kochi court.

The incident took place in 2005 when alleged PDP activists burned a state-owned Tamil Nadu public transport bus after reports surfaced that Abdul Nasir Maudany was treated badly in jail.

The NIA found out that a day before the bus was burned, barring Sufiya, the other accused had met at a mosque near Aluva to finalise the plan.

They found evidence that the accused from one to six had boarded the bus from the Ernakulam bus station while accused seven to nine followed the bus.

When the bus reached Kalamassery, some 15 km from here, those inside threatened the driver using a pistol and a knife. They asked all the 31 passengers onboard to get down and then burned the bus, which caused the Tamil Nadu government a loss of Rs.1.5 million.

The case lay dormant for long but the Kerala Police got into action after reports surfaced that the now arrested T. Nazeer, the self-styled south India chief of militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, had links with Sufiya Maudany.

Nazeer is the first accused in the case.

Abdul Nasir Maudany, an accused in the 2008 serial explosions in Bangalore, was arrested by the Karnataka Police from his party office complex in Kollam district in August.