The Afzal Guru link in recent terror attacks

As investigations into the Pathankot airbase attack gathers pace, investigators say that the 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru has emerged as the common link in at least three attacks on police and Army camps along the Jammu-Pathankot highway in the past one year.

Afzal Guru was hanged in Tihar jail in 2013.

Investigators have found at least one more letter, written in Urdu, on the body of one of the four terrorists killed in Pathankot. It said the attacks were to avenge Afzal Guru. As reported earlier, an Urdu statement, written in English, was found in the vehicle belonging to SP Salwinder Singh the terrorists had used to reach the airbase on the night of December 31.

Similar letters were found on the bodies of the intruders gunned down during an attack on a police post at Rajbagh in Kathua, Jammu, on March 20, 2015 and those who attacked an Army camp in nearby Samba on March 21, 2015. All these places are located within 15-20 km of the Pakistan border and along National Highway 1A. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has found that Chawinda in Pakistan is directly connected to Bamiyal in Punjab, from where the terrorists are believed to have infiltrated into India.

India has said that Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), a Pakistan-based terrorist outfit, was behind the Pathankot attack. In the case of the other two incidents, no conclusions have been reached so far.

“Both the pieces of paper seized during the Pathankot operation had the same content,” said a senior NIA official. “The Urdu letter in English had Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) written on top of the page and it was signed by A.G.S (Afzal Guru Squad). This letter dated December 25, 2015, said the group had planned the attacks to avenge Afzal Guru. The other paper found tucked inside the jacket of one of the four terrorists said much the same thing. Only, this was written in Urdu.”

The NIA has been closely studying the similarities between the Pathankot and the Samba-Kathua attacks since it took over the investigations. An official said even the rifles used by the terrorists were similar in nature. An identical AK-47 rifle with an Under Barrel Grenade Launcher (UBGL) attached was seized by the J&K police during the Samba and Kathua attacks.

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NIA to hand over photos of Pathankot attackers to Pakistan

The National Investigation Agency has decided to preserve the bodies of the four terrorists killed in an encounter at the Pathankot airbase for an “indefinite period” as it makes preparations to hand over their photographs to Pakistan.

The bodies have been kept in deep freezers under “police protection.” They would be preserved till their identities are established, a senior government official said.

Before it decided to send the photographs, the NIA rummaged through the database of all missing persons in India aged 18-35 to establish whether they were Indians or not.

“We went through the records and made enquiries to see whether these terrorists were Indians or not. We found nothing to that effect and now plan to hand them over to Pakistan to seek their help in identifying the four men,” the official said.

He said Pakistan was bound to cooperate with India under the U.N. Security Council resolution 1373 on counter-terrorism. “We will send the photographs to Pakistan and expect action now. Who are these men and where they hail from? We suspect there could be attempts to disfigure the bodies and that is why we have kept them under police protection,” the official said.

'Terrorists dialled six numbers in Pakistan'

The terrorists who entered the Pathankot airbase dialled six numbers in Pakistan, the National Investigation Agency has found. The numbers, including that of the mother of one of the terrorists killed, were dialled from the snatched phones of taxi driver Ikagar Singh and jeweller Rajesh Verma.

While Singh was killed, the terrorists had slit the throat of Verma before throwing him out of the vehicle of the former Gurdaspur SP, Salwinder Singh, which they snatched on the intervening night of December 31-January 1.

The numbers stand in the names of Jaish-e-Islam, Saad, Molana, Mullah Dadullah, Khayam Baber (the terrorist’s mother) and Kashif Jaan. The numbers are registered with Mobilink, Warid and Telenor, the service-providers in Pakistan.

Kashif Jaan, one of the key handlers of the attackers who exchanged a number of calls with them, had been under the scanner of intelligence agencies for long.

Officials said they had analysed his Facebook profile and found that of the 1,200 people on his Friends list, at least 130 belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), a Pakistan-based terrorist outfit, which India says had orchestrated the attack.

According to investigators, Kashif Jaan was also friends with a few Kashmir-based groups on Facebook. The Hindu could not independently verify and access this page.

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Technical snag in video conference adjourns Headley’s deposition

The deposition of American-Pakistani terrorist David Coleman Headley on Wednesday has been adjourned til tomorrow due to a technical snag in the video conference.

Headley was to depose for the third consecutive day before a court here in connection with 26/11 terror attack case.

Special public prosecutor, who is presently examining Headley, said that the deposition has been adjourned till tomorrow due to a technical snag from the U.S side.

Deposing from an undisclosed location for the past two days, Headley had told the special judge G.A. Sanap that ISI was helping different terror outfits in Pakistan by providing financial, military and moral support.

He also revealed that plans to target Mumbai had started over a year before November 26, 2008 and that LeT initially wanted to attack a conference of Indian defence scientists at Taj Mahal Hotel for which even a dummy of the hotel was prepared.

But the plan to target scientists was dropped because of logistical reasons, like difficulty in smuggling in weapons and personal and lack of details about the schedule of the meet, he said.

About plan to target Siddhivinayak Temple, Headley said that Sajid Mir (Headley’s handler in LeT) specifically asked him to make video of it.

Headley also said that he also used to work for ISI and met many Pakistan army officials.

1 Lashkar operative David Headley named Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed as the head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
2 Notably, Headley named Major Ali and Major Iqbal of the ISI and Lashkar commander Sajid Mir as his contacts in Pakistan.
3 He also said the 10 people involved in the 26/11 attacks had made two previous attempts on Mumbai. The first, in September 2008, failed as the boat, which started from outside Karachi, ran into some rocks and sank. The weapons and explosives were lost in the sea. The second attempt took place a month later. It was Mir who informed Headley of the two attempts.
4 Headley said he had joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002 “for a course” in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan, the outfit’s headquarters. He underwent Daura-e-Am (preliminary training) and Daura-e-Khas (advanced training in weapons and explosives). Another camp called Daura-e-Ribbat (intelligence course) was held in Mansehra, 40 miles from Abbottabad, where Saeed and Lakhvi were present.
5 Headley described Lashkar as “a militant organisation in Pakistan whose goal is to fight the Indian Army and assist the people of Kashmir.” Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi would give religious speeches and speak of ‘jihad,’ defined as “fight against enemies of Islam.” They, Headley said, treated India as their enemy.
6 In October 2003, Headley met Maulana Masood Mazhar, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed, about three hundred miles away from South Lahore. Headley also met with Zakir Ul Rehman Lakhvi in 2003 at Muzzafarbad.
7 Headley admits that LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen are working under United Jihad council, and that all these are terrorist organisations in Pakistan working against India.
8 Headley says he was asked by LeT to gather military intelligence in India and also recruit someone from Indian military for spying.
9 Headley then says he was asked to make a general video and recce of Mumbai by Major Iqbal from the ISI.
10 In the deposition, Headley reveals that in the Spring of 2006, a meeting was held where LeT members Muzzabil Butt, Sajid Mir and Abu Khaffa were present. It was then decided that from Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, Mumbai was chosen to set up an office.

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Church street blast cracked, prime accused arrested: NIA

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has claimed to have cracked the 2014 Church Street blast case and announced that Alam Jeb Afridi alias Javed Rafeeq (30), who was arrested by NIA and Telangana ATS recently confessed to the crime.

Afridi was the same suspect who stabbed a Telangana ATS constable Srinivasa, resisting arrest at Doddanagamangala, Parappana Agrahara. While the Telangana ATS and NIA, had picked him up in connection with the Ahmedabad 2008 blasts, he confessed to the Church Street blast in custody, NIA sources claimed. The agency also claimed that the target was an Israeli delegation that was purported to visit Coconut Grove restaurant, that day.

Afridi, NIA sleuths claimed, is a Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) cadre and was an accused in a case for organising SIMI meetings in Waghamon, Kerala, and was declared an absconder with a Rs. 3 lakh bounty on his head for at least five years now. He was close to several top SIMI leaders.

He had been residing in the city for more than three years as a AC mechanic and planted the bomb at Coconut grove, Church Street on December 28, 2014, killing a woman and injuring several others. This was him acting on the instructions of his handler, NIA said. However, the NIA sleuths are not forthcoming on the details of this handler. NIA sleuths are also not commenting on whether Afridi acted alone or if there was a larger group in the conspiracy.

NIA sleuths said that Afridi also carried out the Israeli Visa centre attack in Ulsoor in November 2015.

The NIA has kept the city police in loop about its terror operations in the city, a senior police officer said.

City Police Commissioner N.S. Megharik confirmed that NIA has sought logistic support for its probe in Afridi's case.

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Six arrested in pan-India swoop

In a nationwide crackdown just days ahead of Republic Day, at least six “recruits” were arrested and a dozen placed under watch on Friday for being Islamic State (IS) sympathisers.

The network, and four youngsters arrested by the Delhi police on Wednesday, were allegedly recruited by a former Indian Mujahideen (IM) member, Mohammad Shafi Armar (29), who is suspected to be based in Syria, senior government officials said.

Armar is one of the key members of terrorist outfit Ansar-ul-Tawhid (AuT), formed by former IM members who owe allegiance to the IS.

Senior government officials said there was no impending terror attack that the group had planned. However, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and local police recovered low intensity explosives, detonators, wires, batteries and hydrogen peroxide and other material that can be assembled into IEDs.

The raiding parties recovered 42 mobile phones, as well as jihadi literature, officials said. The men received online training to prepare pipe bombs, a signature weapon that the IM has used in the past to carry out multiple bomb blasts in various Indian cities.

The raids were carried out simultaneously in Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh by the NIA and local police. A senior official said over a dozen people in these locations had come together online to form ‘Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind’, inspired by Armar, who belongs to Bhatkal in Karnataka

They were radicalised online: MHA

The Union Home Ministry did not say that the young men arrested in a nationwide crackdown on terror on Friday belonged to the Islamic State. A spokesperson said, “They were radicalised online. It is too early to say whether they belonged to any particular outfit. Some IED materials have been recovered from Mumbai and Hyderabad.”

The arrests come ahead of French President Francois Hollande’s three-day visit to India from Sunday. The security establishment of both sides have heightened sensibilities about a possible threat from the IS. The French sensitivities regarding the IS, which has repeatedly carried out attacks in Paris, was one of the reasons the Ministry tried to play down the crackdown, sources said.

The NIA registered a case in Delhi and all the accused are being brought to the capital for further interrogation. Various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act pertaining to conspiracy, recruitment for a terrorist outfit and being members of a banned organisation have been invoked.

Mumbai resident Mudabbir Sheikh (33), who was among those arrested, had designated himself as the Ameer of the IS in India, sources said.

Late on Friday, the NIA arrested another accused, Khan Mohammad Hussain (36), from Mumbai.

The NIA officials picked up Sheikh from his Mumbra residence in the early hours of Friday. Sheikh is a former Web developer who holds a diploma in Software Engineering. The money received by Sheikh could have been used to procure weapons, the Ministry spokesperson said.

Officials said he had been under the surveillance of intelligence agencies for six months, but was in touch with a former Indian Mujahideen (IM) member, Mohammad Shafi Armar, for the past two-and-a-half years. He was in touch with several other IS members in Syria as well, officials said.

Sheikh’s wife Huzma (28) said a team of NIA officials reached their residence at 3 a.m. on Friday. “My husband was questioned in the kitchen for an hour, with the door closed, after which they came out and said that they were taking him with them for further questioning,” she said.

Sheikh was produced in a special NIA court and the NIA was granted transit remand for three days. In its remand application, the NIA said Sheikh had been charged with serious offences and charges related to waging war against India and countries friendly to it. Investigators have recovered Rs. 6 lakh from Sheikh which he allegedly got through the hawala route.

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NIA arrests seven more IS suspects in countrywide raid

The National Investigation Agency arrested seven more people for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack in a countrywide raid more from 12 locations in six different cities.

All the accused were reportedly recruited in the name of terrorist outfit Islamic State (IS) and were under surveillance for the past six-seven months, said a senior NIA official.

Those arrested on Saturday have been identified as Syed Mujahid (33), resident of Tumkur, Karnataka, Mohammad Aleem (20), Lucknow U.P.; Mohammed Obedullah Khan (33), Hyderabad; Abu Anas(24), Hyderabad; Asif Ali (21),Bengaluru; Muhammed Abdul Ahad (46), Bengaluru and Suhail Ahmed (23), Bengaluru.

On Friday, the NIA and state police had arrested six accused persons. One more person identified as Imran Khan Pathan alias Abu Hind from Aurangabad was detained on Saturday afternoon. NIA officials said investigations were on and he had not been arrested yet. His arrest would take the number of accused to 14 in the case.

While home ministry has refused to name IS, officials said they were being recruited by former Indian Mujahideen (IM) member Shafi Armar alias Yousuf, a key member of Ansar ul Tawhid (AuT), which has pledged allegiance to the terrorist outfit. The accused are being brought to Delhi where they will be subjected to sustained interrogation.

“These individuals were planning and making efforts to establish a channel of procurement of explosives, weapons, identify locations to organize training camps including training of fire arms, motivate new recruits to target police officers, foreigners in India and to carry out terrorist activities in various parts of India. All the arrested suspects were being brought to New Delhi for interrogation as preliminary enquiry showed that they were working on evolving a terror outfit with ideologies similar to IS,” a statement by NIA said.

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Pathankot attack: NIA searches Salwinder Singh’s residences, office

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the Pathankot terror attack case, on Thursday conducted searches at five places, including the residences and office of Punjab Police SP Salwinder Singh and his friends.

The Gurdaspur office of the SP and residence of his jeweller friend Rajesh Verma, whose throat was slit allegedly by the terrorists after kidnapping them along with a cook, were searched by the NIA sleuths.

The development came after interrogation of Mr. Singh by the NIA for several days in Delhi.

Amritsar Police Commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh said that the NIA team had sought assistance of the police.

A lie detector test on Mr. Singh was conducted on Wednesday by the NIA as part of the probe into the attack on Indian Air Force base in Pathankot.

He will also be subjected to behavioural tests.

Sources said Mr. Singh is expected to be produced before a team of scientists soon. The panel will include a ‘behavioural analyst’ and ‘psychoanalyst’ who will give a scientific assessment of his personality.

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Handlers were close to the border: NIA

The Pathankot terrorists walked 1.5 kilometres after abandoning the SUV belonging to police officer Salwinder Singh before they entered the Indian Air Force base by scaling a wall, not far from the main gate, shows a re-enactment of the sequence of events by the National Investigation Agency.

A senior government official told The Hindu that when the terrorists crossed over to India through a riverine stretch, they were probably dressed in civvies and must have changed into Army fatigues. Teams of NIA have been dispatched to all the border villages near the airbase to recover the clothes and any related evidence.

The NIA also suspects that when the terrorists crossed over to India through the riverine stretch in the Bamiyal sector, they were in touch with their handlers through a Chinese-made wireless set. Since the frequency of these sets is generally only along the line of sight, the NIA believes the handlers must have positioned themselves somewhere close to the border.

“They [the terrorists] took internal roads of the villages to approach the Pathankot airbase. They abandoned the police officer’s vehicle and went on foot for 1.5 km with heavy arms and ammunition,” said the official.

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NIA establishes how ultras entered airbase, but still not sure of number

The only thing the National Investigation Agency has conclusively established after taking over the probe into the Pathankot terror attack is the point of entry of the terrorists who stormed the Air Force Base last week.

Based on a recreation of the scene of crime and technological inputs, the NIA said the terrorists had entered from the rear of the airbase after snapping the barbed wire fence. Under the cover of a tree, they scaled the 11-foot-high perimeter wall and entered the premises by bending a branch. “There is no other evidence to suggest till now that the terrorists could have used any other point of entry. We haven’t found a breach anywhere else; this area has a lot of elephant grass growth,” said a top NIA official.

The official said the agency was still not sure of the number of terrorists who had attacked the base as the bodies of only four had been found. The armed forces had blown up a building where two terrorists were suspected to be hiding.

“Till we get the forensic report, how can we say whether there were five or six terrorists?” the official asked.

PMO asks NIA to share probe details

Under fire from the Opposition and media for mishandling the Pathankot operation, an upset Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has asked the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to disseminate information regarding the NIA’s investigations .

“The Prime Minister was upset with the way speculative stories are doing the rounds in the media, so the MHA has been tasked with flow of information,” said a senior government official. Following this, the NIA issued a press statement giving an update of the investigations.

The statement said the post mortem examination of the bodies of the terrorists were conducted at the Pathankot Civil hospital and body tissues of the terrorists have been preserved for DNA Sampling.

“During investigations DNA samples have been collected from the vehicles used by the terrorists and the same are being sent for forensic examination. Footprints, suspected to be of the terrorists, have been lifted by forensic experts from Bamihal village in the border area and from within the Airforce station and sent to Central Forensic Science Lab (CFSL),” the statement said.

An official said the four terrorists had taken position in a trench behind the Defence Security Corps (DSC) mess, dug during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war.

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Indian youth told parents of his intention to join IS

The 23-year-old computer engineer from Tamil Nadu, who was deported from Sudan before he could reach Libya to fight alongside the Islamic State (IS), had informed his parents of his intentions. It was the parents who informed intelligence agencies and a hunt was then launched for the accused in Sudan.

Sudanese authorities detained him in October on the basis of inputs provided by the Indian agencies. However, diplomatic hurdles and procedures ensured that it was two months before he was deported to India. He was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) upon his arrival in India on Friday.

The accused, identified as Mohammad Nasir, also underwent combat training in Sudan for four months. Though he is an Indian citizen, Nasir had a UAE passport too. He was living with his parents in Dubai where he worked as a computer engineer. Before leaving for Sudan, he first travelled to Chennai and returned to Dubai. “He travelled to Sudan on his UAE passport. He reportedly paid Rs. 80,000 for a Sudanese visa. Once he reached Sudan in June this year, he underwent military training at a camp there,” said a senior NIA official.

A senior NIA officer said that Nasir was arrested as “he was all set to join the battlefield in Libya, an emerging stronghold of the IS.” “We decide on slapping criminal charges after analysing the degree of intent. Here, this man had travelled all the way to Sudan to join the IS, which is a banned organisation here in India,” said the NIA official.

Another official said that Nasir was “self-radicalised” through the Internet and he met his facilitator online. “He had been into online radicalisation for the past one year. He was frank enough to tell his parents that he was going to join the IS and would fight for them. He is in our custody till 21st December and we expect to extract more information from him,” said the official.

Investigators are trying to find out if Nasir underwent training at the camp of Al-Sidairah, a Jihadist figure in Sudan who has openly pledged allegiance to the IS.

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