Was the bomb blast in the Bhopal—Ujjain passenger train on March 7 the first "Islamic State-inspired" terror attack in the country? A chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency in the case negates the claims made by the Uttar Pradesh police earlier that an IS link to the terror strike was a far fetched theory.
The NIA on Tuesday filed a chargesheet in the case against four persons namely Atif Muzaffar, Mohammed Danish alias Jaffar, Syed Mir Hussain alias Hamja Abu Bakkas and Ghaus Mohammed, accusing them of being heavily inspired by the IS to carry out terror strike.
So far, the law enforcement agencies have been able to nip IS inspired terror plots in the bud, leaving little room for worry. But the success of these modules in carrying out the Ujjain train blast comes as a major cause of concern.
The NIA in its chargesheet said that Atif Muzzaffar had formed a terrorist gang with the other chargesheeted persons and slain terror accused Saifullah who owed their allegiance to the Islamic State.
"Action against Saifullah is abated since he is dead,” said the NIA officials. Saifullah was killed in the terrorist hideout after hours long gun battle with the security agencies who wanted to catch him alive. When police stormed the hideout, the first evidence emerged in the form of an IS flag, which set the cat among the pigeons on whether the terror group had directed the attack or it was a self radicalised module.
According to the NIA, all the accused attended Ahl-e-Hadith programme at various places and got radicalised after watching the online publications of the IS. These included the Dabiq magazine and Inspire magazine.
"While the global terror outfit did not mastermind the attack, it surely inspired these youth to carry out subversive activities," said an NIA official.
"They took Bayath (oath of allegiance) to the IS and also attempted to do Hijrat (migration to IS territory) several times through Kashmir, Amritsar, Mumbai and other places," said the agency.
But having failed to join the IS territory in Syria, they started conspiring with each other to carry out subversive activities in the country. The plan was hatched and they shifted to a hideout in Lucknow and collected arms and fabricated IEDs.
The NIA says that the group first conducted "trial blasts" and also killed a teacher at Kanpur in November 2016 using the arms they had purchased.
"One such IED was fabricated at their hideout at Lucknow and carried from Lucknow to Bhopal by the accused who travelled on Pushpak express on March 7. After getting down at Bhopal, the accused planted the bomb on Bhopal-Ujjain Passenger train which was waiting on Platform number six. The Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train reached Jabri railway station and as soon as it left the station and reached the main line, the blast occurred injuring some passengers and damaging the coach.
The bomb planters tried to flee to Lucknow but were apprehended at Pipariya in Hoshangabad district in Madhya Pradesh .
"During investigation, sufficient oral, documentary, technical, forensic and material evidence has been collected which establishes the criminal conspiracy and the terror act committed by these accused," said the NIA.
Earlier, then UP DGP Javeed Ahmed had said that the accused were self proclaimed sympathisers of IS and it may not be correct to link the attack to the Islamic State.
