PTI
Ahmedabad
The Gujarat ATS has foiled a terror conspiracy to target individuals in Uttar Pradesh and arrested a person alleged to be operating as a ‘lone wolf’ after being influenced by extremist ideologies linked to the banned terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, officials said on Tuesday.
The accused, Faizan Shaikh, was in the final stages of planning targeted killings across Uttar Pradesh for ‹insulting› Prophet Mohammed, according to officials.
The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) recovered a pistol and six cartridges from his possession, which he reportedly intended to use for high-profile assassinations.
A tailor by profession, 22-year-old Shaikh, originally from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, was residing in Navsari, Gujarat, where he was arrested by the ATS on Sunday.
“He operated like a lone wolf. Whenever he found someone passing remarks against the Prophet, he would conspire with people connected to his group to kill that person,” ATS DIG Sunil Joshi told reporters.
A primary investigation showed that Shaikh and the wanted accused Mohd Abu Bakar planned to strike terror in a specific community. The conspiracy involves inciting people for an armed rebellion and Jihad to separate Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh from the Union of India, Joshi said.
“After being radicalised by ideologies of the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Al Qaeda terror groups, Shaikh had illegally procured a pistol and ammunition to execute killings of a selected group of individuals to spread terror and fear,” he added.
Prima facie, Shaikh and Abu Bakar had conspired to wage a war against the Government of India and incite violence.
«The accused (Shaikh) told interrogators that he had been in contact with Abu Bakar for the last 6-7 months via WhatsApp, Instagram, and Telegram. About three months ago, he had joined a group via his Instagram ID ‹al.Faizangaza,» said the DIG.
In this group, photos and names of individuals who allegedly insulted the Prophet were circulated with the instigation to kill them.
«Faizan Shaikh forwarded this (information) to others. Both Faizan and Abu Bakar followed Maulana Masood Azhar and the banned outfit JeM on Instagram. They watched and uploaded Jihadi videos of Mufti Abdul Rauf Asgar on the social media platform,» Joshi added.
The ATS claimed that Shaikh «confessed» to having purchased the pistol and cartridges six months ago from an unidentified person in Uttar Pradesh.
He intended to identify and carry out targeted killings of those individuals who he believed had insulted the Prophet (Muhammad), the ATS officer said.
Explaining the sequence of events that culminated in Shaikh›s arrest, Joshi said the ATS had received an intelligence input that the accused had been planning to gun down certain well-known youths in Uttar Pradesh with the intention to spread terror.
