Another ‘ISIS’ man in ATS net, had stored explosives

The Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad (ATS), which had its eyes peeled on Parbhani district in Maharashtra, on Sunday arrested a 24-year-old man with alleged links to banned terrorist organisation Islamic State.

Sources in the police said the man, identified as Shahed Khan, had stored explosives in his house and was plotting a massive terror attack in the state.

This is the second such arrest from Parbhani. On June 14, the state ATS had arrested Naser Bin Yafai Chaus (31) again in connection with the Islamic State. Chaus who had been in touch with IS members in Syria had even expressed a desire to move there but had allegedly been asked to stay in India and plan an attack by the terror group.

Sources in the ATS said that Khan’s name cropped up when officials were interrogating Chaus. “Chaus was in touch with a man named Farookh in Syria and both of them were planning a slew of terrors attacks in the state. We suspect Shahed was roped in by Chaus. They had even made crude bombs that were to be tested,” said an ATS official.

“We seized one kilogram of explosives and instruments from the accused,” said a senior ATS officer on condition of anonymity. While the seized explosives are said to be of inferior quality, officials suspect the accused was preparing a massive attack. “A car remote key, which was most likely to be used for operating an IED, was also found on him,” said the officer.

The officials have seized his laptop, mobiles and other documents from his house. “We will send these for analysis and will check whether he was also in touch with any ISIS operatives and how he got in touch with Chaus,” said an officer.

Sources said that Khan was allegedly planning blasts in areas of rural Maharashtra and some cities in the country too.

Places such as Nanded, Aurangabad and even Hyderabad were on the likely target list. These attacks were to be executed during Ramzan," said the officer.

This is the third arrest this week with Rizwan Khan (50) arrested from Kalyan on Friday and Arshi Qureshi arrested on Thursday from Navi Mumbai.