NEW DELHI: In a massive crackdown against Khalistani elements operating in India and from abroad, and their nexus with organised criminals, the anti-terror federal probe agency NIA on Tuesday conducted multi-state raids covering 14 locations in Punjab and two in Rajasthan, as several suspects were also taken for examination for their involvement in terrorist activities.
A senior official in the agency said, “Extensive searches were conducted across 14 locations in Punjab and 2 in Rajasthan. The raids started in the morning in the districts of Amritsar, Bhatinda, Moga, Sangrur and Kapurthala in Punjab and Churu and Hanumangarh in Rajasthan.
The official said, several persons were taken in for questioning and examination for their involvement in terrorist activities, as the raiding teams recovered a number of digital devices, mobile phones and incriminating documents which are being examined by the agency sleuths.
The official went on to add that the searches were expected to provide vital leads in the ongoing investigations into the “terrorist-organised criminal syndicate nexus’, as the agency’s investigation is aimed at destroying the nexus between terrorists, gangsters, and drug smugglers.
The raids were conducted based on some specific inputs and in the operations residential and other premises of suspects having links with Khalistani supporters and those involved in criminal nexus, the office said.
It is to be noted here that the crackdown has come nearly two months after NIA Director General Dinkar Gupta took up the issues related to active nexus between the terror outfits and terrorist elements with the Director of the FBI, Christopher A Wray, whom he met in December 2023.
Gupta had then told Wray that organised criminal syndicates were also spreading in the US. He had also informed his US counterpart about the ongoing investigations in the US in the attack on the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, and investigations of cyber-terror and cyber-crimes of various kinds.