HYDERABAD: While the investigation into the role of the three terror suspects is still in its nascent stages, Hyderabad police believe that they are looking at a well-developed network that was not averse to using money, technology and emotional appeal to spread terror in the country.
Police have learnt that the three terror suspects -- Abdul Zahed, Samiuddin and Maaz Hasan Farooq -- who are presently in judicial remand, used encrypted phones to communicate with Siddique bin Osman, their handler based in Pakistan. Preliminary investigation revealed that Zahed received Rs 33 lakh through hawala channels. The police are still trying to trace the origins of the grenade the trio managed to lay their hands on.
The remand report, accessed by TNIE, reveals that Zahed, Samiuddin and Maaz Hasan Farooq have given their confessional statements during the preliminary questioning. According to the remand report, Zahed is the brother of two deadly terrorists, Shahid Bilal and Abdul Samad, who were killed in a shootout in Karachi on 30 August, 2007. The report also says that Zahed revived his contacts with Farhatullah Ghori after his release from jail in 2017.
Samuddin allegedly confessed that he met Zahed in a rally and a friendship developed; he also said that the former showed him the pictures of a consignment of grenades that he received from Manoharabad on September 28. The grenades were divided among the three the next day.
Maaz Hasan Faroqui, the third accused, is believed to have confessed that he was influenced enough to sympathise with Zahed’s ideology by the atrocities being heaped on Muslims across the world.
Cops hope to find source of grenade from trio
In fact, he along with another friend, who has not been identified yet, attempted to fly to Syria and join ISIS twice, but could not succeed. The remand report says: ‘The Hyderabadi absconders Farhathullah Ghori, Siddiq Bin Osman, Abdul Bari and others are operating from Pakistan.
They have been continuously trying to recruit Indian youth to wage jihad citing alleged atrocities on Muslims and the plight of Indian Muslims. They are actively motivating, radicalising, recruiting and providing militant training to vulnerable youth.
Apart from recruiting new cadres, these groups are revisiting their old contacts in India and persuading them to work for the cause of Allah and avenge atrocities on Muslims in India”. While the three terror suspects have been lodged in Chanchalguda Central jail in judicial remand, the police are prepping to get their custody for at least a week after Dasara holidays so that they can squeeze from them details like the source of the grenade, the trail of the hawala and scan the CDR/IPDR from the mobile phones seized from them and retrieve the chat data from emails and cell phones.
The police will also focus on trying to establish their precise connections with LeT-ISI and establish the fact that Zahed received Rs 33 lakh through Hawala. The police will also try to identify the youth who were recruited and radicalised by the three accused.