Kolkata: The recent arrest of several Al Qaeda suspects from West Bengal's Murshidabad district and Kerala has led the sleuths to a revelation of sorts. Jamat Kaydatul Jihad, the Al Qaeda offshoot operating in the sub-continent has issued a guideline in Bengali on how to operate and utilise the pandemic situation. The document has now landed with the sleuths.
The 8-page guidelines were issued as early as in March. There are select chapters for operatives and others pertain to wealthy sympathisers. “We have to take concrete steps to free our brothers from the dark dungeons of Guantanamo Bay to Abu Salim. Our brothers are being tortured behind bars for decades now,” says one of the messages to the jihadis.
Freeing of sympathisers and operatives is nothing new. In recent times, an incident in neighbouring Bangladesh had brought the operational modules and capabilities of the jihadis to light. Amer Salauddin Salehdin's name had cropped up as one of the prime suspects in the Dhaka serial blast case. He was nabbed by the police in that country and was later sentenced to death by a court. On February 23, 2014, Salauddin and another operative Kausar were being transferred to another prison in Mirzapur of Bangladesh, when the vehicle was ambushed and both Salauddin and Kausar and another jihadi operative, Rakibul Hasan, was freed by Jamat-ul-Mujahideen operatives. Rakibul later died in a police encounter, but the other two fled to India.
Kausar was arrested from Bengaluru and that was when sleuths came to know of a separate plan hatched by JuM's India operative, Izaz Ahmed.
But, this time the sleuths are extra cautious as they feel that Al Qaeda's plans are much more focussed and oriented that JuM. From 1999 plane hijack to Parliament attack, Mumbai terror attacks and Pulwama attack, the AQ's imprints tell a story of precision and planning.
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Sources in the NIA have said, while interrogating Abu Sufian, one of the suspects arrested from Murshidabad, they would focus mainly on the plans of hijacking AQ suspects and the plans behind it.
In the brochure, it has been said that “prayers would be made to make things worse during this period of uncertainty and threat. And would eventually bring their downfall.” Sleuths feel that the operatives were gearing up for some operation in one of the correctional facilities in the country to free their sympathizers.
The NIA was already on the alert as they had suspected some kind of attack in Delhi. It was while investigating this trail, that the sleuths busted the terror module in Murshidabad wherefrom they have already picked up Abu Sufian, Shaqib, Moidul Mondal, Liuhan Ahmed, Al Mamoon Kamal and Atiur Rehman.
Sources have told Etv Bharat that they are more or less sure that there was a blueprint to free some of the AQ sympathizers who are behind bars and the main investigation is now being focused to squeeze out more information about the plan and also about other sleeper cells operating in West Bengal and other states.
