ATS questions two more suspects in ISKP module case

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat anti-terrorist squad (ATS) has brought two persons to their Chharodi headquarters from Hyderabad and is questioning them for their alleged links to the Surat woman who was arrested in the ISKP module case, an ATS official said on Thursday. A man and a woman have been brought here from the Telangana capital, said a senior ATS official, stressing that they were neither detained nor arrested in the case. Sources in the ATS said the two are being questioned as they were in contact with Sumerabanu Malek, who was among the five people arrested earlier for allegedly being part of a module of the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP). On June 9, the ATS said it had busted a terror module and arrested three men and Malek for their association with ISKP, a transnational Salafi-Jihadist organization and a UN-designated terrorist organization. The three men — Ubed Nasir Mir, Hanan Hayat Shol and Mohammad Hajim Shah, all residents of Srinagar — were arrested in Porbandar, while Malek was taken into custody from Surat. The fifth accused, Zubair Ahmed Munshi, a resident of Srinagar, was arrested on June 12. A first information report (FIR) was registered against them under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The ATS said all five had been radicalized by a handler named Abu Hamza. The ATS had managed to access a cloud storage account of the accused and found a video showing them taking a pledge of allegiance to ISKP while brandishing sharp weapons. As directed by Abu Hamza, the three men held on June 9, had arrived in Porbandar to work as fishermen on boats to cross the International Maritime Boundary Line, reach Afghanistan via Iran, and join ISKP, the agency said. During a search of Malek’s residence in the Saiyedpura area of Surat, ATS found copies of various publications promoting radicalization, including ISKP’s mouthpiece ‘Voice of Khorasan’, the ATS had said in a release. Malek apparently admitted to having been in touch with Abu Hamza and was also close to Munshi.