PATNA: Indian Police in Bihar’s southern Gaya town picked up threeterrorists after raids on Saturday and interrogated them for their allegedlinks with terror outfits.
The three men were picked up from different locations in Marufganj areaunder Kotwali police station, said sources. They were taken into custodyand interrogated for possible connection with the recovery of crude bombsnear the Kalchakra grounds at Bodh Gaya last month and the activities of2008 Ahmedabad blasts Tausif Alam, who was arrested in Gaya in September2017.
“One suspect was detained after we received inputs from centralinvestigation agencies. Based on the facts that emerged from hisinterrogation, the two other men were picked up. A pistol was recoveredfrom one of the three,” said Gaya SSP Garima Malik to The New IndianExpress.
Sources said Mohammad Anwar alias Munna Mistree, who was taken into custodyfirst, allegedly has been in touch on social networking site Facebook withseveral people linked to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a Pakistan-basedIslamic militant group operating primarily in Kashmir.
Mohammad Shad, one of the detained suspects, had carried out onlinetransfer of money to a bank account based outside India at the behest of anunidentified man, said the sources. The pistol was recovered from MohammadShami’s possession.
The detentions were made with inputs from National Investigation Agency(NIA), said an official. After the trio was picked up by the cops, therewere voices of protest in Marufganj area as their parents and neighboursclaimed they had no links with anything illegal or anti-national.
NIA is probing the detonation of a low-intensity crude bomb and recovery oftwo IEDs near the Kalchakra grounds in the Buddhist pilgrimage town of BodhGaya on January 19 night. The incident had shaken the securityestablishment as Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama was camping in thetown at the time along with hundreds of foreign devotees.