MHA asks Bihar govt to help cyber café owner who caught two terror suspects at Gaya

The Centre has asked the Bihar government to provide financial assistance to the Gaya cyber café owner and publisher who became a hero in September after catching two terror suspects, including the key accused of 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts.

The Union ministry of home affairs (MHA), in a letter, has asked the Bihar chief secretary to ensure financial support to Anurag Basu, the cyber café operator and editor of vernacular monthly socio-political magazine ‘Saaf Swar’.

The MHA has also directed the chief secretary to apprise it of the action taken at the earliest.

Basu had chased and caught two terror suspects at Gaya, 100 km south of Patna, on September 13. Tauseef Khan alias Atik Khan, an accused in the Ahmedabad blast, was one of men. The blast had killed 56 people and injured more than 200. Tauseef is at present in the remand of Gujarat police.

READ| 2008 Ahmedabad blast accused among two terror suspects arrested from cyber café at Gaya

But Basu had to a heavy price for what his wife Aradhana Kumari describes was a “misadventure”. With his business crippled for fear of retaliation, he has been staring at penury and also facing threat to his life from sleeper cells allegedly set up by the arrested terror suspects.

The MHA directive to the state government comes in the wake of a letter earlier written by Gaya MP Hari Manjhi to the prime minister’s office (PMO).

In his letter, Manjhi had apprised the PMO of the hardships being faced by Basu, a third degree black belt, who had been giving martial art tips to youths at Tekari and Gaya for more than four years, and sought adequate compensation to Basu, “who has set an example of courage and patriotism”.

READ| Double whammy: Business crippled, Gaya cyber café owner who caught terror suspects faces threat to life

Tauseef, who hailed from Ahmedabad in Gujarat, had been hiding at Sahdeo Khap village in Bodh Gaya police station area, 16 km south of Gaya, since July 2008 with the help of Sarwar Khan of the same village. A computer engineer, well versed in mathematics, Tauseef Khan had joined a private school in the village as a teacher. However, he was also giving lessons in jehad to many Class 12 students who came to him for private tuitions, the police said.