‘Hero’ who helped nab terror suspects stares at biz loss
GAYA: A cyber café owner and publisher who became a hero after catching two terror suspects, one of whom is an accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts, is now staring at penury.
With his business crippled for fear of retaliation, Anurag Basu is today unsure how to pay the school fees of his son Shivam, a second standard. He is also uncertain about paying his monthly rent of his house and cyber café.
Basu’s life has changed since he caught two terror suspects on September 13. Tauseef Khan alias Atik Khan, an accused in the Ahmedabad blast, was one of the two men. The blast killed 56 and hurt more than 200.
He has already paid a heavy price for what his wife Aradhana Kumari describes was a ‘misadventure’.
He chased down the suspects after they left his cyber café in a jiffy when he asked them to furnish identity documents and share their mobile numbers — a prerequisite for accessing services at a public cyber café.
“Customers do not come to my cyber café anymore fearing retaliation by terrorists. Four of my employees have also deserted me for the same reason. The average daily customer footfall has come down from 60-80 to near zero. From earning anything between ₹30,000 and ₹40,000 monthly, my income is now zero,” Basu told HT.
Advertisements for his vernacular monthly sociopolitical magazine ‘Saaf Swar’ have also dried up.
To make matters worse, the police have confiscated the master computer at his cyber café as part of the investigation. Besides, he is forced to make rounds of the police, with sleuths of the anti-terrorist squad (ATS) handling the case and special branch and the intelligence bureau summoning Basu.
All he has earned in return is accolades from Gaya senior superintendent of police Garima Mallick, who had said that the police would award Basu for his valour.
Son of a retired armyman Vishnudeo Prasad, Basu is a third degree black belt in karate from the Temple of Martial Arts in Kolkata.