NIA detains 14 ISIS suspects in Republic Day terror sweep

SECURITY JITTERS Crackdown in wake of threat against French President François Hollande’s visit

NEW DELHI: Authorities issued an alert in the Capital on Friday after the driver of a taxi allegedly hijacked near the scene of a recent terror attack on Pathankot airbase was found murdered, sparking concerns amid a nationwide crackdown by the NIA on alleged Islamic State militants.

The alert came amid heightened security in the Capital and across the nation ahead of Republic Day celebrations to be attended in Delhi by French President Francois Hollande as the chief guest, months after his country was hit by a series of coordinated terror attacks claimed by the IS.

The NIA arrested or detained more than a dozen people including the self-appointed India head of Islamic State during raids in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra which security sources said blew the lid off a sweeping network of the terror

group with plans to carry out bomb blasts here.

The alleged chief, or Ameer, 34-year-old Munabeer Mushtaq from Mumbai, is a software engineer and was in touch with a person named Yusuf Al-Hindi,

an Indian national suspected to be a former key member of the Indian Mujahideen group and now in the IS-held area along Iraq-Syria border. “It is believed that Munabeer Mushtaq was meticulously planning to raise a pan-India network of operatives who were attracted to the IS ideology. He was planning to anoint Ameers and their deputies for all states in the country,” said a senior home ministry official.

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