A team of National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials arrived in Assam on Wednesday to grill the seven accomplices of the Hizbul Mujahideen cadre who were taken in by the Assam Police.
A report published in India.com quoted a senior Assam Police officer as saying, “An NIA team has arrived in Assam and they are grilling the arrested linkmen. This is for the first time that we have arrested Hizbul Mujahideen linkmen from Assam. We are trying to see if the Jammu & Kashmir (J&K)-based Islamist terror outfit had already set up an Assam module.” The official refused to reveal further details as it might hamper the investigation.
The report further stated that the NIA team arrival comes days after the arrest of a Hizbul Mujahideen man from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh who is originally a native of Assam. Reportedly, the terrorist had plans to attack on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi in Assam. He also revealed during an investigation that he went for training to Kashmir in April 2017.
After the arrest of the man identified as Qamar uz Zaman from Uttar Pradesh last week, Assam Police have so far nabbed seven persons including the brother of the man for having links with him and the Jammu and Kashmir-based terror outfit. Following the arrest of Zaman, Assam Police arrested his close associate Shahnawaz Alam from Hojai in Assam. After this Saidul Alam, a resident of Lanka in Hojai district, Umar Faruk and others were also arrested from different places in Hojai and Nagaon districts of Assam.
Police said that Saidul was also in touch with Zaman and visited Srinagar in April this year and got in touch with few Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists.
