New Delhi: Investigators interrogating the three youths arrested for alleged links with banned Jaish-e-Mohammed on Friday said the trio were shown videos pertaining to alleged atrocities against Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarnagar and Iraq to induct them into the outfit and execute terror strikes in the national capital.
A senior police official said prime accused Sajid had joined a social media page where he met a cyber entity 'Talha', believed to be close to JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, who is wanted by India in connection with 2001 Parliament attack case and the terror strike on Pathankot IAF base in January.
The web page had links to several websites which allegedly propagate jihad ideology. In one such website, Sajid found a phone number, which pertained to Pakistan and the contact number later turned out to be that of Talah, the official said.
Once Sajid had roped in the other accused youths – Sameer Ahmed and Shakir Ansari into the module -- the cyber entity sent them links to videos showing alleged atrocities against Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarnagar and Iraq. The idea was to induct them into the outfit and plan serial blasts here, the official added.
Investigators had yesterday said the trio was initially inspired by the dreaded ISIS and later shifted their ideological leaning.
Sajid was self-radicalised and propagated ideology which was in line with that of the Islamic State until he came in touch with Talha. However, the circumstances behind the change in the ideological unit was yet to be ascertained.
All 13 people, including the three arrested, picked up by police in connection with the matter were members of a WhatsApp group, the communications under which is currently being scrutinised by investigators.
Apart from data shared through Internet and an 8 GB pen drive recovered from the possession of the arrested persons, investigators are also scrutinising books which the trio possessed.
The police had claimed to have recovered from Sajid's residence one live improvised explosive device (IED), one damaged IED and materials like batteries, timer devices, pipes, wires, adhesives and over 250 grams of suspected explosives in powdered form, all sent to a forensic lab now.
The three youths, who were under the lens of intelligence agencies for the past one year, were arrested after late night raids starting Tuesday. While Sajid and Sameer hail from Delhi-NCR, Ansari is a resident of Deoband in Uttar Pradesh.
The three had been learning to put together IEDs over the past fortnight and on Tuesday, Sajid got injured while making the explosive device. His left hand was damaged when it went off accidentally. Sajid had called up Sameer immediately after the explosion and the latter rushed to his house.
