'Guj IS suspects had links with Lanka terror handler’

Even as

Sri Lanka

uncovers the vast network of terror in the country, investigators in

Gujarat

have established links between a terror handler in the island nation and two IS suspects who were picked up from Bharuch and Surat in October 2017.

Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has detailed WhatsApp chats between the two IS suspects, Ubed Mirza and Kasim Stimberwala, and their Lanka-based handler Aadhil Ameez alias Aadhil AX, which took place in 2017.

The conversation among the trio starts with a discussion on the Godhra riots. According to the chargesheet submitted by NIA against Ubed and Kasim, Aadhil claims to be a former soldier of Sri Lanka Special Forces who later trained extensively in Pakistan.

In the chats, the trio talked about an unidentified person, suspected to be an IS operative based in Sri Lanka, ATS sources said.

“Arre Bro...that guy from Sri Lanka..What could he do?” Ubed asks Aadhil, who replies, “He is ready for anything.”
Ubed then inquires if the Sri Lankan person could speak Hindi? Sources said the conversations are attached in the chargesheet filed in April 2018 against Ubed, who was a practising lawyer in Surat, and Kasim, an electrocardiogram (ECG) technician in a Bharuch hospital.

Ubed and Kasim were highly radicalised in the group of IS sympathizers who were in touch through social media and handled by Aadhil. The duo was planning to carry out lone wolf attack on a synagogue in Ahmedabad’s Khadia area before they were nabbed.

“If Taliban was not fighting the US, they would have wiped off India's name from the global map,” Aadhil says in one of the conversation with the duo.

Sources in intelligence agencies said the conversation about the Sri Lanka IS operative was shared with the central agencies in 2018.