Mumbai: A 22-year-old from Mangaluru, Bilal Ahmed Teli, who had been allegedly caught residing illegally on the IIT Bombay campus for nearly three weeks, was driven by an intense fascination with the IIT brand rather than any sinister motive, the crime branch has concluded.After extensive interrogations by Mumbai Police, Mangaluru Police, Intelligence Bureau, and Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, authorities have ruled out any terror link in Teli’s prolonged unauthorised stay on the premier technology institute.“Prima facie, it appears he was obsessed with associating himself with the IIT tag to bolster his career,” said a senior police officer involved in the probe. “Despite scoring poorly in his class 10 exam, he developed a strong interest in engineering and technical subjects. While working for two marketing companies in Mangaluru, he even travelled to Qatar and Kuwait on brief sojourns, which we have confirmed were official visits.“Teli, son of a garment trader from Mangaluru, attended 10 lectures on artificial intelligence at IIT-B despite holding only a Class 10 qualification and a diploma in web designing. He stayed on the campus from May 29 to June 17, managing to slip past security checks multiple times. Police said that IIT records show that he had registered for one day online lectures on Artificial Intelligence.He first entered the campus on May 29, using forged documents, including a guest entry made through a suspicious phone call to the IIT gate control room. Police said the mobile number he had provided was fake. Teli returned to the campus after a trip to Surat for Eid and continued his stay undetected until a staffer, Shilpa Kotikal, identified him in a lecture hall. She had raised concerns on June 4 when he entered her office without authorisation and fled.Following his arrest, the Crime Intelligence Unit registered a fresh FIR against him on June 24 under various sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including criminal trespass, impersonation, forgery, cheating, and others.
