The arrest of 11 terror suspects by the Bangalore Central Crime Branch could be the tip of the iceberg. It now appears that their network is far bigger than the police initially thought.
Home Minister R Ashok told Express on Saturday that there will be countrywide arrests in the coming days.
“Our investigations have revealed that the suspects had a wide network across India. Already, a person has been arrested in Hyderabad and four in Maharashtra.” Late on Friday night, police, on the basis of leads provided by the suspects, picked up three people, a source in the Home Department said.
The police, however, are yet to report their arrests.
“We want to establish a link before arresting anyone.
Picking up suspects is nothing new,” the source said, while refusing to reveal the identities of the three persons.
Information obtained during interrogation has also prompted the police and the Central intelligence agencies to take up a major crackdown on various sleeper cells in Karnataka.
The number of sleeper cells is said to be high in North Karnataka, particularly in Belgaum, Gulbarga, Hubli-Dharwad and Bijapur and in Dakshina Kannada districts.
Bangalore and Kolar are also said to have a few sleeper cells.
“All these places are active centres of banned SIMI that attract vulnerable young minds to join the Jihad by joining other extremist groups. Several people have been arrested from these places in connection with various terror plots, including the attacks on churches by the ISI module Deendhar Anjuman, the attack on the city court in Hubli, IISc attack, Chinnaswamy stadium attacks and the serial blasts,” the source said.