NIA arrests Islamic State Khorasan Province case accused in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday (August 17, 2020) apprehended an accused in connection with Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) case.

The 28-year old Abdur Rahman was arrested from Bengaluru and is working as an Ophthalmologist at MS Ramaiah Medical College in the same city.

This case was initially registered by Delhi Police Special Cell in March 2020, after the arrest of a Kashmiri couple namely Jahanzaib Sami Wani and his wife Hina Bashir Beigh from Okhla Vihar, Jamia Nagar in Delhi. 

The couple was found to be having affiliations with ISKP, which is a banned terrorist organisation and is a part of ISIS and were found to be involved in subversive and anti-national activities. They were also found to be in touch with Abdullah Basith, who was already lodged in Tihar jail in another NIA case (ISIS Abu Dabhi Module).

During further investigation, NIA arrested two more accused - Sadiya Anwar Sheikh and Nabeel Siddick Khatri, both residents of Pune, for being part of the conspiracy to further the activities of ISIS/ISKP in India and to carry out subversive activities in the garb of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests.

During interrogation, arrested accused Abdur Rahman confessed that he was conspiring with accused Jahanzaib Sami and other Syria-based ISIS operatives on secure messaging platforms to further ISIS activities. 

Subsequently, he was in the process of developing a medical application for helping the injured ISIS cadres in the conflict-zones and a weaponry-related application for the benefit of ISIS fighters.

He had also visited an ISIS medical camp in Syria in early 2014 for treatment of ISIS terrorists and stayed with Islamic State operatives for 10 days and returned to India.

After his arrest, NIA carried out searches at three premises belonging to him in Bengaluru with the assistance of Karnataka Police and seized digital devices, mobile phone, and a laptop containing incriminating material.

Abdur will be produced before the NIA Special Court at New Delhi and NIA remand will be sought for his custodial interrogation.

Further investigation in the case is continued.