NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday conducted raids against Jaish-e-Mohammad-linked members at 19 locations across eight states including Assam, Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Jammu & Kashmir, officials said.
They said that the raids were conducted in a case linked to the radicalisation of individuals associated with Jaish-e-Mohammed and the dissemination of terrorist propaganda.
A spokesperson in the NIA said, “Several incriminating documents, electronic devices including mobile phones, pen drives, CDs, hard disks etc. were seized during the searches carried out across eight states.”
The locations at which the searches were conducted today were Goalpara (Assam), Aurangabad, Mumbai, Amravati (Maharashtra), Jhansi, Bareilly, Deoband, Saharanpur (UP), Sitamarhi (Bihar), Hooghly (West Bengal), Baramulla, Reasi, Budgam, Anantnag (J&K), Dungarpur (Rajasthan) and Mehsana (Gujarat), they said.
The officials said the searches were conducted at the premises of suspects and close aides of an accused Sheikh Sultan Salah Uddin Ayubi, a Jaish-e-Mohammad operative, who was arrested on account of his incriminatory role in the case.
Ayubi was taken into custody in October this year for disseminating propaganda material associated with the banned terror outfit while radicalising and recruiting youth into the Jamaat outfit inspired by the JeM.
Even as the NIA officially denied having arrested anyone in the case following the raids, sources in Ahmedabad said that the agency detained Adil, a suspected JeM operative from a madrasa in the Sanand area of the city. The suspect is currently under intense interrogation by the NIA team, which received active support from the Ahmedabad district police.
Sources in Ahmedabad Police said, there was an intelligence input suggesting that an individual named Adil, who allegedly works at a madarsa in Chekhala village, Banaskantha district, had links to the JeM.
Meanwhile, in UP’s Jhansi district, the NIA team had much difficulty when they were mobbed by the Muslims - both men and women - while taking Mufti Khalid Nadvi for interrogation after an-eight-hour search at his residence in connection with the case.
Sources in Jhansi police said the NIA team accompanied by Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) raided Mufti Khalid Ansari Nadvi’s house in Super Colony at 2.30 am on Thursday in connection with a foreign funding and money laundering case in Jhansi district. It was also suspected that Nadvi had been involved in spreading terror propaganda of the JeM.
As per the Jhansi police sources, when the authorities were taking him along for further interrogation, a large number of local Muslim residents gathered in front of his house in response to an announcement made from the mosque.
