Gujarat Police bust terror module planning hits on prominent political leaders, 3 held

Surat (Gujarat), May 17: In a major terror bust, the Gujarat Police claimed to have busted a module that was planning to kill prominent political leaders across the country.

Briefing media persons on the breakthrough, on Friday, Commissioner, Gujarat Police, Anupam Singh Gehlot said a maulvi (cleric), identified only by his first name Sohail, was arrested in connection with the matter and disgorged more leads on the terror module on being interrogated.

The commissioner added that the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the central elite anti-terror agency, was also involved in the ongoing probe into the module.

"In the first week of May, we arrested a maulvi by the name of Sohail from the Surat district. On being interrogated, he shared more leads on this terror module that he was associated with. We recovered two voter identity cards from the cleric," Commissioner Gehlot told ANI on Friday.

He revealed further that the police also seized two birth certificates--one of Surat and the other of Nawapura in Maharashtra--from him.

Speaking on another accused person, Mohammad Ali alias Shehnaz, who was also arrested, the commissioner said, "She used a mobile phone SIM from Nepal. Using his mobile tower location, we tracked him down at Muzaffarpur. He earlier used to stay in Nepal. He used a single mobile handset but operated 17 numbers."

The police commissioner revealed that Shehnaz also had 42 email IDs against his name, adding that he used his multiple SIMs and email IDs to threaten his targets.

"He had Nepalese citizenship in addition to an Aadhar card," the commissioner added.

On the third accused, identified as Raza, the commissioner said, "He destroyed his mobile handset but we managed to retrieve some information with the help of FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory). We are in the process of gathering further details and data on him and the module. He used a Pakistani SIM card provided by his handler Dagar."

Further investigation is underway, the police said.

This is a developing story and more details are awaited.