Guwahati, Dec 19 (IANS): The Assam Police Special Task Force (STF) with the help of Kerala and West Bengal Police busted a jihadi terror module and arrested eight fundamentalists, including a Bangladeshi national in this connection, a senior police officer said on Thursday.
The Assam Police STF, in a major Intelligence-based nation-wide operation, dubbed as ‘Operation Praghat’ arrested the Bangladeshi national Muhammad Sad Radi a.k.a. Md Shab Seikh (32), a resident of Rajshahi in Bangladesh, in Kerala.
Two others -- Minarul Sheikh (40) and Md. Abbas Ali (33), both residents of Murshidabad (West Bengal), were arrested from their native state.
The remaining five persons -- Nur Islam Mandal (40), Abdul Karim Mandal (30), Mojibar Rahman (46), Hamidul Islam (34) and Enamul Hoque (29) – were arrested from Assam.
Enamul is a resident of Dhubri while the remaining four others are residents of Kokrajhar district of Assam.
Giving details of the dismantling of fundamentalist/jihadi terror module, Assam Police Special DGP Harmeet Singh said that the arrests were made on the intervening night of December 17-18.
He said that the eight persons are handlers in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and they were working to form 'sleeper cells' in different parts of India and there were plans to assassinate leaders belonging to Hindu community and RSS, besides undertaking violent and subversive activities in India.
The police officer said all the eight arrested persons were brought to Guwahati and a detailed probe was underway to gather more information.
The Special DGP said that the ‘Operation Praghat’ was launched in November after a detailed and prolonged examination of intelligence input regarding the clandestine anti-national activities being carried out by a group of individuals under the direction of Md Farhan Israk, a close associate of Jasimuddin Rahmani.
Rahmani, according to the police officer, is the Chief of Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), an affiliate of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, a global terrorist organisation.
The operation was launched under the direct supervision of STF Chief Partha Sarathi Mahanta.
Md Sad Radi visited Assam and West Bengal to meet sleeper cell activists of the banned ABT, before he moved to Kerala for the same purpose.
Mobile phones with various suspicious apps, used for communicating with their handlers in Bangladesh and Pakistan were recovered from the detainees.
Other items recovered from them include religious books with distorted narratives, printed and published in Bangladesh, four pen-drives with incriminating evidence, one Bangladeshi 'card', and various Bangladeshi certificates.
Earlier this week, the Assam Police STF also arrested five Pakistan-linked terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members from Kokrajhar and Dhubri.
Four JeM operatives have been arrested from Kokrajhar district, while one JeM linkman was arrested from Dhubri district, a police officer said.