The National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Anti Terror Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh Police put in a major effort to bust the terror network of ‘Harkat-ul-Harb-e-Islam’ in western Uttar Pradesh. On Wednesday, the agencies arrested 10 people for their links with ISIS. Raids were conducted at 16 locations across Uttar Pradesh and Delhi following intelligence inputs.
The agencies' efforts resulted in a major breakthrough and led to the arrest of 29-year-old Mufti Suhel, the leader of the network.
The agencies had been working for the past three months to bust the terror network. To gather concrete information about the network, NIA and ATS personnel were living as servants in Saidpur village and providing information about these modules to their higher authorities, sources said.
Some of them pretended to be members of the municipal corporation and went for surveys at suspicious places in the village. This helped them gather vital information and evidence for the crackdown. It is on the basis of these inputs that officials planned the raid in Amroha.
The mission was so secret and guarded that even the local police and local intelligence units were not kept in the loop. Their help was sought only at the eleventh hour for security reasons. The raids started around 3am on Wednesday and continued the whole day. Eight teams comprising 150 cops were involved in the raids in Delhi and Amroha.
The NIA also picked up a woman and a 17-year-old youth from Vazirgunj area of Lucknow. They are accused of funding the terror modules working in western Uttar Pradesh. After preliminary inquiry, it came to light that the lady had given over Rs 2 lakh to the accused for funding after selling her jewellery.
