Terror attack on Kabul gurdwara: NIA registers first overseas case

NEW DELHI: The NIA on Wednesday registered its first overseas case and will probe the terror strike on a gurdwara in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul last month that left 27 people including an Indian citizen dead.

An amendment of the NIA Act which came into effect in August last year has vested the agency with the power to probe terrorist activities against Indians and Indian interests abroad.

The NIA registered the case under various sections of IPC including 125 (waging war against a friendly country).

Provisions of anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, were also invoked in the FIR registered by the NIA, an official spokesman said.

According to the FIR, unknown gunmen stormed into the gurdwara in Shor Bazar area of Kabul on March 25 and fired indiscriminately killing 27 devotees and injuring several others. Nearly 150 people were inside the gurdwara when the attack took place. Tian Singh, a resident of Greater Kailash Part-1 in New Delhi, was also killed in the attack whose responsibility was claimed by banned Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), an offshoot of ISIS.

The spokesman said that according to preliminary investigation, Mohammed Muhsin (28), a resident of Thrikaripur town in Kerala’s Kasargod district, and others who had joined ISKP, are suspected to have been involved in the attack. Muhsin went to the UAE in 2018 from where he is believed to have joined the ranks with the global terror organisation in Afghanistan, officials said.