India
Co-ordinated ops by IB, anti-terror units foil plans for major attacks.
Updated : Apr 21, 2017, 07:42 AM IST
In a fresh crackdown on terrorists inspired by the Islamic State (IS) in the country, four men were arrested and six others detained after raids were carried out by police teams of five states in a well-coordinated operation being closely monitored by the Intelligence Bureau on Thursday.
Suspects were arrested from Mumbai, Bijnore (Uttar Pradesh) and Jalandhar (Punjab) and Narkatiya (Bihar).
Activities of these terror suspects were being monitored for the past sometime, and the operation involved a close coordination among the anti-terror units of UP Police, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, and Bihar.
The arrests were made by the UP Police and the suspects are being interrogated by its anti-terrorist squad for further leads. The anti-terrorist squad of UP Police said that four persons were arrested on charges of hatching terror conspiracies. The accused were planning a major terror attack in the country, it said.
Seventy-five people have been arrested for alleged IS-related activities from across the country before Thursday's crackdown.
Among those arrested is Nazim Shamshad Ahmed, 26, who was nabbed from Mumbra in Thane district adjoining Mumbai in the wee hours of Thursday. Ahmed sold ice-candies to earn a livelihood in the narrow bylanes of Mumbra.
He has been touted as the kingpin of the group by the UP-ATS, alleging that the group was planning terror activities.
Ehteshamul Haq alias Zakwan was arrested Narkatiya, Bihar.
Nazim's neighbhour Yahiya Khan, said, "We never found Nazim being involved in any suspicious activity as he rarely interfered in any society matter. He works as an ice candy seller. Nazim has been living in the society since the past 5-6 months, while the other two suspects were staying there before him."
Like in most other IS-related cases, the accused were in touch with each other over the Internet.
Nazim's main task was to radicalise unemployed Muslim youth and arrange money for their training for terrorist activities, police claimed.
The other suspect arrested on Thursday was Ghazi Baba alia Muzammil nee Zeeshan, a resident of Unnao Hall, Jalandhar in Punjab. His main job was to spread religious frenzy and include new members in the module.
Mufti alias Faizan was arrested from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh. He was entrusted with the task of arranging arms and ammunition for the new module members.
"On a tip-off that a new IS module has spread its tentacles in the states of Punjab, Maharashtra, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh to induct misguided Muslim youth in the name of jihad, we coordinated with the ATS cells and police of these states and rounded up these terrorists. As many as nine teams were involved in the raids," the IG of Utttar Pradesh's Ant-Terror Squad Aseem Arun said.
He added that during initial interrogation, they revealed that they were out to disturb the communal harmony in different parts of the country by carrying out terror acts.
The ADG Law and Order Daljeet Singh said that the joint operation yielded good results and within 15 days, the UP ATS with the help of ATS and police of other states busted this new ISIS module which was radicalising Muslim youth to form a new organisation for spreading terror in the country.