Terror Links Case: Two More Held, Five in Remand Till April 6

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh police arrested two more accused on Wednesday in addition to the arrest of three youths for suspected terrorist links, and produced them before the city court.

They have been sent to judicial remand up to April 6.

One more accused, Abdul Salaam hailing from Bellary in Karnataka, was taken into custody by the AP police and would be brought to the city for questioning.

The AP police arrested the fifth accused Sayeeda Begum hailing from Chanchalguda in Hyderabad and brought here. Similarly, ninth accused Jishan hailing from Jodhpur city in Rajasthan was arrested and brought to the city.

With the arrest of the two accused, the number of arrests rose to five and all of them are now in judicial remand.

Following the arrest of three youths by the 2 Town police in Vijayawada on charges of maintaining terror links on Tuesday, the police registered an FIR that has altogether 13 persons as accused.

They included Rehmatullah Sharif Mohammad (A-1), Mohammad Danish (A-2), Mirza Sohail Baig (A-3), Shadman Dilkash (A-4) from Bihar, Sayeeda Begum (A-5) from Hyderabad, Al Hakim Shukoor (A-6), Lucky Ahmed (A-7) from Delhi, Amanullah Khan (A-8) from Bihar, Jishan (A-9) from Rajasthan, Mir Ashif Ali (A-10) from West Bengal, Abdul Salaam (A-11) from Karnataka, Sharuk Khan (A-12) from Maharashtra and Shaik Fiaz Ur Rehman (A-13) from Maharashtra.

First accused Rehmatullah Sharif Mohammad confessed to the police in the presence of mediators that he discontinued his degree course and started to work as a Rapido rider. The accused said that he was a staunch believer in Islam, used to visit the mosque at Winchipeta regularly, and followed the preachings of Israr Ahmad and Jakir Naik.

“I was attracted to radical Islamic ideologies and developed an interest towards banned terrorist organisation AQIS,” he said, and added that he searched the social media to find out details about it, He was thus attracted to its ideology

“I then decided to take part in Jihad.”

Rahmatuallah said he used to follow the Instagram IDs of those having terrorist ideology, atched Jihad videos and statements of AQIS leader Osama bin Laden and JeM chief Mohammad Masood Azahar, and made the ISIS Jihadi slogan ‘Dawlatul. Islam Baqiyah’ as the status and highlight on his Instagram accounts.

He said, “I had got acquainted with the two co-accused, A-2 and A-3, having similar interests and set up ‘Al Malik Youth Islamic Committee (AMYIC) in 2023 and created a WhatsApp Group, Instagram ID, Group ID, YouTube channel and made Danish (A-2) as the ‘admin’ for them.”

Rahmatullah noted that their AMYIC’s objectives were: make India as an Islamic State, destabilise India, support Palestine in the ongoing confrontation between Israel and Palestine, campaign against purchase of products from Israel and attract more Muslim youths towards it.