Assam police bust terror module, one Bangladeshi among 9 people arrested in 'Operation Praghat'
Guwahati: Assam’s Special DGP Harmeet Singh here on Wednesday said that a team of the Special Task Force led by IGP Partha Sarathi Mahanta averted a major terror attack by the sleeper cell of a fundamentalist group by arresting an active member of the outfit from Kokrajhar in Western Assam.
Informing that the STF arrested Abdul Zaher Sheikh a 30-year-old resident of Joypur, Namapara, Kokrajhar, Mr. Singh who has been supervising ‘Operation Praghat’ launched earlier this month after a detailed and prolonged examination of intelligence inputs told reporters that the STF in addition to the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and incriminating documents also recovered a cache of arms and ammunition, including four handmade rifles, 34 rounds of ammunition, and 24 blank cartridges.
Pointing out that they are investigating the origin of these hand-made rifles which were given the shape of AK-47 rifles, Mr Singh said that recovery of empty cartridges has given them reason to believe that some kind of training of sleeper cells of the jehadi group was being carried out. “We with the help of central agencies are still investigating the matter as there have been inputs of these terror networks trying to spread their tentacles in the entire northeast,” said the special DGP who admitted that all these sleeper cells became faster the unrest of Bangladesh.
Earlier arrested people were Md Sad Radi alias Shab Sheikh (36) from Bangladesh’s Rajshahi, Minarul Sheikh (40) and Md. Abbas Ali (33) from West Bengal’s Murshidabad, Nur Islam Mandal (40), Abdul Karim Mandal (30), Mojibar Rahman (46), Hamidul Islam (34) and Enamul Hoque (29) from Assam’s Kokrajhar and Dhubri.
He said that Sad Radi had entered India in November under the direction of one Md Farhan Israk, a close associate of Jasimuddin Rahmani (chief of Ansarullah Bangla Team, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, a GTO).
“Sad Radi was sent here to spread their nefarious ideology and to create sleeper cells among like-minded individuals across India, with an intention to cause violence and subversive actions in the country,” the special DGP said.
It is significant Mr Singh in his earlier briefing had informed that Radi visited Assam and West Bengal to meet sleeper cell activists of the banned Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) before he moved to Kerala for the same purpose.
“They had plans to assassinate Hindu leaders, including leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to create tension here on religious grounds. We have found religious books with distorted versions of jihad and we believe that they were trying to include the people of some particular communities in their activities,” Mr Singh had said.
During the operations, the STF also recovered some mobile phones with various suspicious applications, used for communicating with terrorist groups in Bangladesh and Pakistan.