Guwahati:
The Special Task Force (STF) of the Assam Police arrested two more members of the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a Bangladesh-based terror group affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), a senior police officer said.
The suspects, Abdul Zaher Sheikh and Sabbir Mirdha, were arrested from Namapara in Kokrajhar district on Tuesday night, Special Director General of Police Harmeet Singh said.
“With the arrest of the two more ABT cadres, the STF achieved a huge success in averting a possible major terror act by fundamentalist and jihadi elements of a global terrorist organisation,” Mr Singh told reporters.
Eight ABT operatives were arrested from Assam, West Bengal, and Kerala last week.
Following an interrogation, the two suspects led the police to a hiding place where they had kept a huge stock of arms, ammunition and other weapons.
These four handmade rifles that resemble the AK series assault rifles, 34 bullets, 24 rounds of blank cartridges, a pair of live unprimed improvised explosive device (IED), a crude grenade, detonators made with agricultural equipment, 14 electronic switches, and three iron cases used for making of IEDs, along with 20 iron pieces and plates for causing maximum damage and destruction.
The STF as part of ‘Operation Praghat’ on the intervening night of December 17 and 18 had arrested eight ABT operatives from Assam, West Bengal, and Kerala.
Among the eight, five were arrested in Assam’s Kokrajhar and Dhubri districts, two in West Bengal, and one Bangladeshi national in Kerala.
The Bangladeshi national, Muhammad Sad Radi aka. Md Shab Seikh, 32, was arrested from Kerala.
The Special DGP Mr Singh last week said the eight arrested people had handlers in Pakistan and Bangladesh. They had been working to set up sleeper cells in different parts of India. They also planned to kill leaders belonging to the Hindu community and the BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), besides other violent and subversive activities.
Mr Singh said they launched ‘Operation Praghat’ in November after a detailed examination of intelligence inputs about clandestine anti-national activities being carried out by a group under the direction of Md Farhan Israk, a close associate of Jasimuddin Rahmani.
The operation was launched under the direct supervision of STF chief Partha Sarathi Mahanta.
