GUWAHATI: The head of ISIS in India, Haris Farooqi, and his associate Anurag Singh were arrested in lower Assam's Dhubri soon after they had crossed over from Bangladesh on Wednesday.
Earlier, a police team was deployed following intelligence inputs that the duo would cross over into Assam.
In a statement, the police said, "Information was received from sister agencies that two top rung leaders of ISIS in India who were camping in a neighbouring country would cross over to India at the Dhubri Sector to carry out sabotage activities."
Based on the inputs, a special task force team, led by IGP Parthasarathi Mahanta, was deputed to locate and apprehend the accused who were wanted by the National Investigation Agency.
"Thereafter, since the input was credible in nature, a manhunt was launched on the international border area to nab the culprits. At around 4.15 am of 20/03/24, the accused persons were detected at Dharmasala area of Dhubri after they had crossed the international border," the statement said.
Following their arrest, the two were brought to Guwahati.
"The identity of both of them was ascertained and it is found that accused Haris Farooqi alias Harish Ajmal of Dehradun is the head of ISIS in India. His associate Anurag Singh alias Rehan of Diwana, Panipat got converted to Islam and his wife is a Bangladeshi national. Both of them are highly indoctrinated and motivated leaders/members of ISIS in India," the statement further said.
The police said the two furthered the cause of ISIS in India through conspiracies to carry out recruitment, terror funding and terror acts "by means of IEDs" at several places across India.
Several cases are pending against them at NIA, Delhi; ATS, Lucknow etc. STF, Assam will hand over the accused to NIA for taking up further legal actions against them, the statement added.