Hyderabad: A few days’ delay in the arrest of two-city based alleged sympathisers of the Islamic State could have proved fatal. The two could have carried out attacks by making IEDs. They were also in the process of procuring weapons, including AK-47s, in New Delhi.
The probe by National Investigation Agency sleuths revealed that the two youths were encouraged by a Pakistani national to carry out Lone Wolf attacks in India.
The National Investigation Agency arrested Abdul Basith, a 24-year-old engineering dropout, and Mohammed Abdul Qhadeer, 19, both residents of Chandrayangutta in Hyderabad, on August 12, 2018, in connection with a case registered at NIA, Delhi, in 2016, in which three persons were arrested for forming the Abu Dhabi module of ISIS to encourage and recruit Indians into the banned organisation.
During the arrest of Basith and Qhadeer, the NIA recovered chemicals like liquid chloroform, potassium chlorate, potassium nitrate, soldering machines and iron balls. The CFSL later gave a report saying the seized material could have been used to trigger an explosion.
On February 7, the NIA filed a supplementary charge-sheet in a court in Delhi, mentioning that Basith was keen on targeting government employees and security forces, besides targeting people of a particular community.
In-depth investigation of the case after arresting Basith and Qhadeer revealed that they had raised funds to purchase chemicals to make IEDs and to buy AK 47s from other IS sympathisers. They were in touch with an online handler, reportedly hailing from Pakistan, who was recruiting Indians, who guided them for close to a year.
Basith was arrested in 2015 by the Hyderabad city police. After his release in 2016, he began using Instagram app in cellphones of workers at his father’s furniture-manufacturing unit and got in touch with some ISIS sympathisers hailing from the US, Australia, Khorasan and India.
He became friends with Qhadeer, who was like-minded and wanted to join IS troopers. He also held meetings with his friends, mostly at his furniture unit or at a paan shop in Himayathnagar or at an Arabian Mandi restaurant, the sleuths said.
“One of his online mates, a US national, Matin Azizi Yarand, was later arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for planning to carry out mass shooting at a mall near Dallas,” the sleuths found during the probe.
While being in touch with Matin, Basith was introduced to Huzaifa Bakistani, believed to be a Pakistan national living in Afghanistan.
“As Basith showed helplessness to leave the country for Syria, Huzaifa assured to provide weapons from Punjab, Delhi and Bihar and also advised Basith to carry out Lone Wolf attacks,” NIA sleuths said in the charge-sheet.
Accordingly, Basith raised funds through hawala and deposited it in a Delhi-based account, as directed by Huzaifa.
The former also developed contacts with Delhi-based boys who were also sympathisers.
“Basith deposited Rs 49,000 into the account of a Delhi man, who used a Telegram Id styled as ‘C’. Then, he was also put in touch with three Delhi-based youngsters to purchase two AK 47s for '4 lakh. As the police apprehended the Delhi boys, Huzaifa asked Basith to visit Delhi and kill an RSS man and post the same in the media and claim that he had done it on behalf of ISIS,” the sleuths said.
On July 28, 2018, Basith went to Delhi and met two Kashmiri youth, Jamshed Zahoor Paul and Parvez Rashid, who were to deliver him weapons to kill the RSS man, but they were caught by the Delhi special cell.
As he knew that he will be tracked, Basith returned to the city on August 7.
He destroyed his phone and SIM cards and dumped them into the garbage bin near the Telangana Express, and dropped another phone in an autorickshaw before reaching home.
But the sleuths arrested him following raids at his house.
