9 al Qaeda men held for plan to trigger attacks

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) said on Saturday that it has busted an al Qaeda module and arrested nine people who were allegedly planning to carry out major terror strikes in India at the direction of their Pakistan-based handler.

The nine suspects were picked up from West Bengal and Kerala on Saturday, people familiar with the developments said, requesting anonymity.

The suspects, under the scanner for some time, were arrested after the agency learnt that they acquired large quantities of weapons, country-made firearms, locally fabricated body armour, jihadi literature, and literature used for making explosives, according to the officials cited above.

The suspects were planning attacks at several locations, including Delhi-NCR, Kochi and Mumbai, and they were about to leave for Kashmir to receive a consignment of weapons, which was likely to arrive from Pakistan, the officials added.

“NIA learnt about an interstate module of al Qaeda operatives at various locations in India, including West Bengal and Kerala. The group was planning to undertake terrorist attacks at vital installations in India with an aim to kill innocent people and strike terror in their minds,” NIA spokesperson Sonia Narang said in a statement.

“These individuals were radicalised by Pakistan-based al Qaeda terrorists on social media and were motivated to undertake attacks at multiple places, including the National Capital Region (NCR). For this purpose, the module was actively indulging in fund-raising and a few members of gang were planning to travel to New Delhi to procure arms and ammunition. These arrests have pre-empted possible terrorist attacks in various parts of the country,” the statement said.

The handler of the module has been identified as Abu Hamza, who is in Pakistan. He is said to be directly linked to the main al Qaeda outfit headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to officials.