CUTTACK/BHUBANESWAR: Even as the spectre of terror link looms over India, a joint team of National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) on Wednesday quizzed a 52-year-old man from Cuttack district suspecting his links with a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative.
A 10-member joint team raided the rented house of Akhtar Hussein Khan at Samantarapur under Kishan Nagar police limits and grilled him for over five hours. They also seized some documents from his possession. However, Khan was let off at about 9.30 pm by NIA and IB sleuths, sources said adding that he would be summoned further if required.NIA’s raid in Odisha came hours after the national agency along with Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested the suspected LeT operative Shaikh Abdul Nayeem from Lucknow. Nayeem is a resident of Aurangabad in Maharashtra.
Sources said, Khan along with Nayeem and a youth from Maharashtra’s Thane worked in the same workshop in Saudi Arabia. After, Nayeem was interrogated, Khan’s name cropped up. “After the standard verification, he was let off. In fact, the Thane youth too was quizzed and allowed to go,” sources said adding, so far, no illegal or terror links have been established.
The investigation agency also quizzed Khan about several contact numbers found from his mobile phone. Khan, who hails from Kusumandal village under Nemal police limits in Cuttack district, was away from home for the last two months. He had returned on Tuesday night.“NIA team visited the State to question a man residing in Kishan Nagar. We extended all support and cooperation to the agency. The man was questioned by the investigating officers of the national agency,” Odisha DGP Dr RP Sharma said.
Khan lives with his wife and they have two sons and a daughter. His eldest son is working in the Middle-East while the daughter is married.
Police sources said, NIA officers interrogated Khan from about 8 am to 2:30 pm before taking him away to an undisclosed location. His wife and sons were not allowed to meet and asked to sit in an adjoining room of the house.Khan was working in Saudi Arabia before returning to Cuttack where he rented a house in Kishan Nagar for the last four years after a family dispute with brothers. His wife asserted that he was not involved in any illegal activities. The incidence comes two years after the Delhi Police had nabbed suspected Al-Qaeda Indian sub-continent operative Abdul Rehman, who was running a Madrasa at Bilteruan village under Tangi police limits here. On December 15, 2015 night, Rehman was arrested during a joint operation of Delhi and Odisha police from his house at Paschimakachha village on charges of radicalising youths for terror activities.