PATNA: Police in Bihar’s southern Gaya town picked up three terror suspects after raids on Saturday and interrogated them for their alleged links with terror outfits.
The three men were picked up from different locations in Marufganj area under Kotwali police station, said sources. They were taken into custody and interrogated for possible connection with the recovery of crude bombs near the Kalchakra grounds at Bodh Gaya last month and the activities of 2008 Ahmedabad blasts Tausif Alam, who was arrested in Gaya in September 2017.
“One suspect was detained after we received inputs from central investigation agencies. Based on the facts that emerged from his interrogation, the two other men were picked up. A pistol was recovered from one of the three,” said Gaya SSP Garima Malik to The New Indian Express.
Sources said Mohammad Anwar alias Munna Mistree, who was taken into custody first, allegedly has been in touch on social networking site Facebook with several people linked to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group operating primarily in Kashmir.
Mohammad Shad, one of the detained suspects, had carried out online transfer of money to a bank account based outside India at the behest of an unidentified man, said the sources. The pistol was recovered from Mohammad Shami’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, there were voices of protest in Marufganj area as their parents and neighbours claimed they had no links with anything illegal or anti-national.
NIA is probing the detonation of a low-intensity crude bomb and recovery of two IEDs near the Kalchakra grounds in the Buddhist pilgrimage town of Bodh Gaya on January 19 night. The incident had shaken the security establishment as Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama was camping in the town at the time along with hundreds of foreign devotees.