major-terror-act-averted-in-assam-2-suspects-held

A major terrorist act was averted when two more operatives of the Al Queda-linked terrorist outfit Ansar-al-Islam, also known as Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), were arrested by the Assam Special Task Force (STF) with a cache of arms and ammunition.

 

Addressing a press conference here, Special Director General of Police Harmeet Singh said the Special Task Force (STF), along with Kokrajhar District Police, carried out an operation in Namapara area on Tuesday night and nabbed the two persons.

 

"The team, led by STF Inspector General Parthasarathi Mahanta, achieved a huge success in averting a possible major terror act by the Jihadi elements of a global terrorist organisation. We seized huge war-like stores from them," he added.

 

The fresh arrests of the two suspects of the outlawed outfit affiliated with Al-Queda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) follow the earlier arrests of eight ABT operatives from Assam, West Bengal and Kerala during the course of ‘Operation Praghat’.

 

“We recovered four AK-47 rifles, 34 rounds of cartridges and a hand grenade from the possession of the arrested two. We are yet to ascertain their exact plan of operation,” the Assam police said.

 

“We suspect the terror outfit has swung into action since the changes in Bangladesh’s politics in August. Its operatives are targeting Bengal and Assam to procure arms and ammunition to create unrest in the Indian regions sharing border with Bangladesh,” said the police.

 

Investigators suspect the outlawed module was actively recruiting and radicalising local youths in India with plans to expand its footprints across the country’s eastern region, including the vulnerable Sillguri Corridor, a narrow strip that connects India with northeast states.

 

Of the eight arrested earlier, five were rounded up from Assam’s Kokrajhar and Dhubri districts, two from Bengal’s Murshidabad and one, who is a Bangladeshi national, from Kerala.

 

During the course of the interrogation of the eight accused, the Assam STF came to know ABT operatives had conducted several meetings using the soil of West Bengal with a plan to recruit youth for the module’s sleeper cells in India.