The Anti-Terrorism Squad of the Gujarat Police has arrested two men, who were planning to carry out lone wolf attacks in the country and are suspected of having links to the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group, from Rajkot and Bhavnagar in the state. According to investigators, this is the first time that people having direct links to the terror outfit have been arrested in India.
The arrested duo — Wasim and Nayeem Ramodia — are brothers involved in a scrap business and have pursued computer science as undergraduates. The crime branch's Joint Commissioner of Police I K Bhatt told reporters that the duo was planning "lone wolf" attacks. According to the police, literature made bombs were found on their laptops. They also recovered crude bombs, gun powder, masks, mobile phones computers as well as jihadi literature from them.
The Indian Express quoted sources as saying that the duo were planning to attack a famous temple in Surendranagar. A police officer said that the brothers had been under surveillance for the past two years and were allegedly using social media and messaging apps such as Twitter, Facebook and Telegram to contact ISIS operatives abroad.
"They are under watch for the past two years along with dozens of other such people who were openly supporting IS on social media. The intelligence agencies had also been watching these youths even since IS emerged as a major terror threats," the officer said. Their father Arif Ramodia was associated with the Saurashtra Cricket Association.
Person arrested by Gujarat ATS from Rajkot. Joint CP of Crime Branch, IK Bhatt says they were planning 'lone wolf' attacks. pic.twitter.com/JN1hCZDCcb
— ANI (@ANI_news) February 26, 2017
Recently, Indian doctor K Ramamurthy had been rescued from the terror group and brought to India. He said that ISIS is keeping a watch on the development of education and economy in India and wants to establish their ideology in the country. He added that most members of ISIS are educated youths and are well-informed about India's growth.
"These IS people are well-educated youngsters and they do know about India and its development and how it has developed in education, economy and everything else. They are interested in India. But, I did understand that they wanted to spread the ideology of their nation to other parts of the world, including India," Ramamurthy told ANI.
Previously, investigators dealt with cases in which people had been brainwashed by watching videos of the ISIS or listening to speeches made by the chief of the terrorist organisation Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, which were uploaded online, but had no definite or direct links to the terror group.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh told PTI: "So far, 67 youths, who were influenced by the ISIS, were arrested while planning to carry out terror attacks." He added that coordination between the agencies of the Centre and the state had ensured that such men do not carry out any terror attack in the country.
