NEW DELHI – Based on its interrogation of two suspected ISIS operatives whowere nabbed last year, the Gujrat Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) has exposed asinister plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to reports, a charge sheet has been filed in which it claimedthat an unidentified associate of one of the two men arrested by it lastyear had actually talked about assassinating Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Yeah let’s take Modi out with a sniper rifle,” is a line from aconversation cited by the Gujarat ATS in its chargesheet, attributed to anassociate of Ubed Ahmed Mirza.
The ATS arrested Mirza and Mohammad Kasim Stimberwala in October last yearand it filed a chargesheet against them before the chief judicialmagistrate at Ankleshwar in Bharuch district last month.
The Gujrat ATSlink>citeda WhatsApp chat between Mirza and his associate, identified only as’Ferrari’, on September 10, 2016, where the former talked about buyingpistols, in its chargesheet.
In response, ‘Ferrari’ said, “Yeah, let’s take (Prime Minister Narendra)Modi out with a sniper rifle Insha-Allah”, the Gujarat ATS claimed in itschargesheet.
When ‘Ferrari’ mentioned a Russian-made gun, Mirza promptly replied, “Iwant it”.
The Gujarat ATS also cited another WhatsApp chat between them on July 26,2016, during which Mirza was told that the ISIS handlers had asked itsmodules and lone-wolf attackers in India to use machetes and big choppingknives to target people.
Instead of taking the risk of buying guns and assembling explosives, onecan target people, “especially foreign citizens”, using chopping knives,Ferrari told Mirza during the WhatsApp conversation.
The Gujarat ATS has, meanwhile, begun the process to identify the otherpeople who figure in these chats, including ‘Ferrari’, claimed a report byDNA.
The ATS has alleged that Stimberwala and Mirza were “highly radicalised bythe Jihadi ideology of Islamic State and were actively planning lone-wolfattacks on Jews”.
While Stimberwala worked as a laboratory technician at a hospital inAnkleshwar, Mirza was a practising lawyer at the Surat district court.
Abdullah el-Faisal, a radical preacher based in Jamaica, and suspected ISIShandler Shafi Armar have been shown as absconding accused in the chargesheet.
ATS claimed Stimberwala and Mirza were in touch with el-Faisal and Armar toplan attacks on Jews in India. They conducted a recce of some of thetargets and were planning to send radicalised youths outside India to takepart in terrorist acts, the charge sheet said.
Both have been charged under IPC sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy),121-A (sedition) and 125 (waging war against any Asiatic power in alliancewith India), apart from the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.