NEW DELHI, Sep 19: Nine persons suspected to be terror operatives have been picked up from Kerala and West Bengal by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The group is alleged to have links with the Pakistan-sponsored Al-Qaeda.
An NIA spokesperson said on suspicion the agency carried out simultaneous raids at several locations in Kerala’s Ernakulam and West Bengal’s Murshidabad after learning about an inter-state module of Al Qaeda operatives hiding at various locations in India.
The spokesperson said the inter-state module had been operational for some time and was planning to carry out terror attacks at vital installations in India.
“The group was planning to undertake terrorist attacks at vital installations in India with an aim to kill innocent people and strike terror in their minds,” the spokesperson said, adding that it had registered a case on September 11 and the raids were carried out early on Saturday morning.
The official said the NIA had made six arrests from West Bengal and three from Kerala in the early morning raids.
During the raids, large quantity of materials including digital devices, documents, “jihadi” literature, sharp weapons, country-made firearms, a locally fabricated body armour, articles and literature used for making home-made explosive devices had been seized from their possession.
“As per preliminary investigation, these individuals were radicalised by the Pakistan-based Al Qaeda terrorists on social media and were motivated to undertake attacks at multiple places including the National Capital Region,” the official said. “For this purpose, the module was actively indulging in fund raising and a few members of gang were planning to travel to New Delhi to procure arms and ammunition. These arrests have pre-empted possible terrorist attacks in various parts of the country,” the NIA official said.
Another NIA official also said the group was planning attacks with IEDS, made from potassium procured from firecrackers, and planned to go to Kashmir for weapons delivery. He added that the group had procured some firearms from Delhi which they were supposed to deliver in Kashmir on the directions of their Pakistan handlers. However, they had not yet been told who or which group in Kashmir would receive them.
“During the raids the agency got huge cache of firecrackers. They bought the firecrackers to hide procurement of huge amount of potassium required to make the IEDs,” the official said.
The arrested terrorists have been identified as Murshid Hassan, Yakoob Bishwas and Morshraf Hussien, all three residents of Ernakulam, Najmus Sakib, Abu Sufiyan, Mainul Mondal, Leu Yean Ahmed, Al Mamun Kamal and Atitur Rehman, all residents of Murshidabad. The official said those arrested from Kerala were also originally residents of West Bengal and had reportedly gone to Kerala in guise of labourers.
The official said that the potassium present in the firecrackers were taken out and then was used to make the IEDs. The official also said they had recovered the crude IEDs along with the switches, batteries etc from terrorist Sufiyan’s residential premises in Murshidabad.
(Manas Dasgupta)