News Analysis India

Tag: ATS

  • Four Bangladeshi nationals arrested by ATS in Bhopal

    By Express News Service

    BHOPAL:  An alleged module of the Bangladeshi terror outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has been busted in Madhya Pradesh following swoop by state police’s anti-terror squad (ATS) in Bhopal in Saturday-Sunday intervening night.

    Four men, all Bangladeshi nationals, were arrested following raids by the ATS teams at a rented accommodation in the congested Aishbagh area of the state capital. According to state police’s official statement, the four men were part of a JMB plot to develop a remote-base/sleeper cell for carrying out anti-national activities in India, including MP in the future.

    The four men have been identified as Fazhar Ali alias Mehmood (32), Mohd Aqeel alias Ahmad (24), Zahuruddin alias Ibrahim alias Milon Pathan alias Jauhar Ali (28) and Fazhar Jainul Abdin alias Akram Al Hasan alias Hussain.

    Incriminating material, including Jihadi literature and electronic equipment have been seized from the house where the foursome was living since last 4 months. It has prima facie been established that the men were in the initial phases of radicalising local youths.

  • Maharashtra: ATS to soon start investigation into RSS headquarter recce bid case

    By PTI

    NAGPUR: The Nagpur unit of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) will soon launch the investigation into the alleged bid to conduct reconnaissance of the RSS headquarters here in Maharashtra by a member of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a senior police officer said on Sunday.

    The Nagpur unit of the ATS had received directives from its Mumbai-based head office on the orders of former Maharashtra DGP Sanjay Pandey, he told PTI.

    ATS officials are likely to request the Nagpur police on Monday to seek documents related to this case.

    The ATS Nagpur is likely to take custody of the suspected JEM operative Raees Ahmed Sheikh Asadulla Sheikh , a resident of Jammu and Kashmir, to expedite the investigation, he said.

    Police had said that the JeM operative had made an unsuccessful attempt to carry out reconnaissance of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters in July 2021.

    He conducted a partial recce of the Hedgewar Smriti Bhavan in the Reshimbaug area of the city and managed to send a video of the Bhavan to his handler in Pakistan, a senior Nagpur police commissioner Amitesh Kumar had told reporters.

    Sheikh was arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir police after recovering a grenade from his possession in December last year.

    A case was registered against him under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act at Kotwali police station in Nagpur last month.

  • Witnesses turning hostile, ATS lawyers to be present at Malegaon blast trial: Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: Noting that prosecution witnesses in the 2008 Malegaon blast case are turning hostile, Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil on Saturday said the lawyers of the state ATS would attend the ongoing trial before the special NIA court.

    The case had been initially investigated by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took it over.

    “Recently some witnesses have turned hostile…we will have our lawyers present in the court during the hearing from now on,” Walse-Patil told reporters.

    The Additional Chief Secretary (Home) would communicate with the central agency on this, he added.

    Earlier this week, state Congress working president and former Minister of State for Home Naseem Khan had met additional director general of police Vineet Agarwal who heads the ATS over the issue.

    In a memorandum to the ATS, Khan demanded that ATS lawyers be present in the NIA court here during the trial.

    The accused in the case include Pragya Singh Thakur, the BJP MP from Bhopal who is out on bail.

    So far, 16 out of 223 witnesses who deposed have turned hostile, accusing the ATS of torturing and forcing them to give false statements, Khan had said in the memo, adding that to defend the state and ATS’ image, its lawyers should be present in the court.

    Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a communally sensitive town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.

  • Can’t deny possibility of terror modules, sleeper cells in Kanpur: UP DGP Mukul Goel

    His statement came in the wake of the ATS recently arresting some people in Lucknow over suspected terrorist activities.

  • UP Anti-Terrorism Squad arrests three men in Nagpur under anti-conversion law

    By PTI
    NAGPUR: The Uttar Pradesh police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested three persons from Nagpur in Maharashtra in connection with a case registered in Lucknow under UP’s anti-conversion law, an official said on Saturday.

    The trio was arrested from Ganeshpeth area in Nagpur city on Friday night, he said.

    The accused were identified as Prasad Rameshwar Kavale (from Nagpur), Kausar Alam Shaukat Ali Khan (from Jharkhand) and Bhupriya Bando Devidas Mankar (from Gadchiroli in Maharashtra), the police official in Nagpur said.

    The three accused were staying at Hansapuri under the jurisdiction of Ganeshpeth police station, he said.

    The UP police’s ATS had arrested some persons last month and claimed to have busted a nationwide racket of religious conversions.

    An FIR was lodged with Gomtinagar police station in Lucknow under the state’s anti-conversion law.

    The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, which was promulgated in November last year, prohibits unlawful religious conversions and nullifies marriages if they are carried out for the sole purpose of religious conversion.

    The law provides for imprisonment of up to 10 years and a maximum fine of Rs 50,000 under different categories.

    The UP police had said that they had recovered a register from some of the accused persons arrested earlier.

    The register carried details of over 1,000 persons from Maharashtra, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, and Delhin with their names and addresses mentioned in it, they had said.

  • NIA detains 10 people in connection with probe into new ISIS module

    The NIA on Wednesday detained 10 persons from Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi for their suspected involvement with a new ISIS inspired terror module planning to carry out blasts in north India, especially in the national capital, officials said.

    The National Investigation Agency conducted searches across 16 locations in Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi in connection with its probe into the new module called ‘Harkat ul Harb e Islam’, they said.

    Of the 10 persons detained by the anti-terror probe agency, five were picked up from the western Uttar Pradesh district of Amroha following a joint operation with the UP Anti-Terrorist Squad, Inspector General ATS Asim Arun said in Lucknow.

    Five more were detained from north-east Delhi with the help of Delhi Police’s Special Cell, officials said.

    “The searches are going on,” an NIA spokesperson said.

    The group was under NIA surveillance for some time following inputs of their  suspicious activities, officials said.