Peoples Democratic Party President and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday questioned the timing of the arrests of suspected members of a terror module linked to the Islamic State in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi on Wednesday. The National Investigation Agency made the arrests.
Mufti said it was premature to call the arrested men terrorists on the basis of “sutli [thread]” bombs. “National security is supreme,” she tweeted. “But declaring suspects as terrorists on the basis of sutli bombs, associating with the dreaded IS is premature. NIA must learn from earlier episodes in which the accused were acquitted after decades.’’
The agency on Wednesday conducted raids in 17 locations in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and detained 16 people suspected to be members of a terror module called the Harkat ul Harb-e-Islam that is reportedly inspired by the Islamic State group. The agency said the group was planning to target politicians and government installations in the national Capital and other parts of North India.
The investigators claimed to have recovered large quantities of explosive material, weapons and ammunition, including a country-made rocket launcher. They also allegedly seized Rs 7.5 lakh in cash, nearly 100 mobile phones, 135 SIM cards, several laptops and memory cards. Several batteries and 120 alarm clocks that were reportedly going to be used to make bombs were also recovered. Investigators also reportedly found 25 kg of a paste of potassium nitrate, potassium chlorate, sugar and sulphur, along with 150 rounds of ammunition.
However, MK Khan, counsel for the accused, has argued that the NIA recovered a tractor’s power nozzle that it had planted earlier and was calling it a rocket launcher. “What they [NIA] are calling explosives are actually ‘sutli bombs’ that are used in Diwali,” ANI quoted Khan as saying on Thursday. “There is a lot of fabrication.”
A Delhi court has sent 10 of those arrested to police custody for 10 days.
“Arrests by NIA in the election season do raise suspicion, especially after the urban Naxal case seems to be falling apart,” Mufti added in another tweet. “National security is best served by being just and inclusive, not suspicious of an entire community.”
Mufti was referring to the arrests of 10 activists in June and August for their alleged links to the Maoists. They were allegedly involved in an event in Pune on December 31 last year that triggerred caste-related violence in Bhima Koregaon the following day.
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