NIA arrests weapon supplier to recently busted suspected ISIS-linked module

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday night arrested a man suspected to be the weapon supplier to the alleged members of an ISIS-inspired terror group who were taken into custody during the recent raids. The 21-year-old man, identified as Naeem, was produced before a Delhi court. Naeem was arrested by NIA sleuths from Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut district. He was allegedly providing weapons to the suspected ISIS terrorists. On December 26, 2018, the NIA had conducted raids across Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and arrested 10 suspected terrorists, including a 'mufti' from Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, believed to be associated with ISIS-inspired group 'Harkat ul Harb e Islam’.

The NIA claimed that they were planning to carry out suicide attacks and serial blasts targeting politicians and government installations in the national capital and other parts of north India.

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"The members were in an advanced stage of preparation. They were just waiting for the successful assembly of bombs and wanted to hit multiple locations using remote-controlled IEDs and pipe bombs and carry out fidayeen attacks using suicide vests when needed," a senior NIA official said.

The NIA also claimed to have recovered a locally-made rocket launcher, material for suicide vests and 112 alarm clocks to be used as timers during its searches in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. A Delhi court allowed the NIA 10 days custodial interrogation of the men after it produced them before it on December 27.

The agency claimed that the "highly-radicalised module" of youths in the age group of 20-35 years were funded on their own and had no criminal antecedent. The group they were part of is called 'Harkat ul Harb e Islam', which roughly translates to war for the cause of Islam.

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Those arrested include the alleged mastermind, 29-year-old Mohammed Suhail, a 'mufti', or a Muslim legal expert empowered to give rulings on religious matters, from Amroha in western UP, an engineering student of Amity University in Noida and a third-year graduation student in humanities in a university in Delhi as well as two welders, he said.