'Arrested mass comm student was trying to arrange explosives', NIA sources

Sadiya Anwar Sheikh, mass comm student from Pune who was arrested by the NIA for her alleged links with the Islamic State Khorasan Province module, was in touch with several key leaders on secure messaging platforms and was trying to arrange for explosives and to recruit more youths for terrorist activities.

New DelhiSadiya Anwar Sheikh, a second-year mass communication student from Maharashtra's Pune who was arrested by the NIA for her alleged links with the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) module, a banned terror organisation that is part of the IS, was in touch with several key leaders on secure messaging platforms.

She was also part of their channels to build up a cadre to carry out terrorist activities in the country, sources said on Saturday.

According to top NIA sources, Sheikh was arrested on July 12 along with a gym operator Nabeel Khatri from Pune for trying to build up a cadre of ISKP in India, which is also a part of the IS-JK module.

The source said that the IS has made several such groups in different parts of the world. The NIA source said that Sheikh, 22, was a highly radicalised extremist, who had undergone de-radicalisation twice before and was allegedly in constant touch with the Kashmiri couple -- Jahanazaib Sami Wani and his wife Hina Bashir Beigh.

The Kashmiri couple was arrested in the ISKP module case initially registered with the Delhi Police's Special Cell on March 8 this year from Delhi.

The source claimed that Sheikh was in touch with Abdullah Basith, who is already in Delhi's Tihar jail in another ISIS Abu Dabhi module case.

The source added that according to the secure messaging application digital interceptions Sheikh was in touch with several IS handlers to propagate the ideology of the ISIS and further its activities in India.

The source claimed that Sheikh's digital interceptions from the secure messaging platforms have confirmed that she was in touch with the IS leaders in India and abroad and was trying to arrange for explosives and trying to recruit more youths for terrorist activities.

The digital interceptions also confirmed that she was working to arrange for the explosives and arms to plan a terror attack in several parts of the country.

The NIA had taken over the ISKP module case from the Delhi Police's Special Cell after it arrested Wani and Beigh from southeast Delhi's Jamia Nagar area.

According to the NIA, the couple was having affiliations with the ISKP and were found to be involved in subversive and anti-national activities.

The NIA in a statement earlier this week had said that Sheikh was in contact with the ISIS recruiters through the social media since 2015. She was planning to execute a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir and was detained by J&K Police in 2018.

The NIA had said that Wani, Basith and Khatri were actively involved in the planning to carry out violent terrorist attacks in India by arranging logistic support such as procurement of weapons, fake SIM cards, assembling of Improvised Explosive Devices etc to further the activities of the ISIS in India.