The dangerous terror group Islamic State (IS) has made its presence felt in India after the blast in Bhopal-Ujjain train and an ISIS terrorist, Saiffulah was gunned down by Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad in Thakurganj, Lucknow on March 7. Saifullah belonged to the Khurasan module—a big fraction of Tehreek-e-Taliban of Pakistan (TTP) which operate in Pakistan and Afghanistan—of the Islamic State.
In a joint operation by Uttar Pradesh police and Madhya Pradesh Police eight arrests were made establishing the links with Bhopal-Ujjain train blast in Madhya Pradesh on March 7. Ten people were injured in the train blast.
Not only Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, but two more states—Kerala and Telangana—came together to bust the ISIS Khurasan module in India.
- After the Ujjain Train blast, the Kerala Police shared information on the Syrian handler talking to group members in Uttar Pradesh and their movement in MP with Telangana Police.
- Telangana police passed on the information to Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh on the ISIS Khurasan module and their planned attack. Telangana cops were tracking the online chat originating from UP and MP with the Syrian handler before the blast took place in MP.
- The location of terrorists was clear by then and their movement was notified to the concerned police departments.
- MP police arrested Atif Muzaffar alias Al Qasim (Kanpur), Mohammad Danish alias Zafar (Kanpur), Sayed Mir Hussain alias Hamza (Aligarh) from Piparia. While the UP police arrested Mohammad Faisal Khan and Mohammad Imran from Kanpur. One more suspect, Fakre Alam alias Rishu, was then arrested from Etawah.
- Police recovered a laptop and mobile phones from the arrested suspects which had ISIS-related videos and ISIS literature.
- Telangana police coordinated with Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and shared information daily. Telangana police had been keeping a record of the ISIS module since 2011.
- The Telangana team has reportedly de-radicalised 19 men since 2015. Telangana police had caught 6 Hyderabad men from Kolkata in 2015 as they wanted to move to Syria through Bangladesh.
- In 2016, with the help of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), a massive country-wide raid was conducted in January and 18 men were arrested from all over the country, mostly from Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Meerut.
- In June 2016, seven Hyderabad-based men were arrested with explosives.
- The terrorists wanted to trigger IED in the Ujjain train blast through a mobile phone, but due to technical problems that couldn’t happen.
