‘Suspects tried to procure AK-47s’

Did the Islamic State (IS) supporters who were nabbed by the NIA recently try to procure modern weapons The interrogation of the five arrested IS men has revealed that they had tried to procure AK-47s to launch massive attacks like the 26/11 attack in Mumbai.

An official source said the communication in-charge of the local IS module, Ibrahim Yazdani, alias Abu Abdur Rahman, and armoury in-charge Askari Habeeb Mohammad tried to procure advanced weapons using funds received by IS through hawala.

The module had also visited the Bihar and Nepal border for procuring sophisticated weapons like AK-47, Insas rifles and automatic sten guns. The module searched about the features and use of several weapons online. The Bihar police has tightened control on the illegal firearms units at Gaya and other parts of the state. Earlier, advanced weapons and duplicate models of German weapons were available in Bihar. Now, the business has been controlled by the police and they did not get the required weapons in Bihar, the source said. As the module failed to procure the desired weapons they purchased country firearms from Nanded. The terrorists were planning to escape from the scene of attacks using firearms. They had practised firing using air guns and pellets. Although they procured live rounds they did not have weapons. They procured live rounds of 9 mm pistols thinking that they will be able to purchase pistols soon, the source said.

Earlier in the city, ISI operative Mujeeb, who was involved in additional SP Krishna Prasad’s murder case, had procured an AK-47 for terror activities. Similarly, a LeT operative from Kerala, Kannur module, T. Nasir, who was caught at the Chittagang Dargah on the Indo-Bangla border by Interpol, had confessed that he had procured an AK-47 and had hid it at in a coconut tree in Kerala.

He gave terror training to Kerala youths in Hyderabad along with his brothers-in-law Abdul Sattar and Abdul Jabbar. The trio was arrested in 2009 and T. Nasir was brought from Bangladesh and now they are in a Karnataka jail.