Gujarat’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has filed a chargesheet against two suspected ISIS terrorists last month which claimed that an associate of one of the arrested operatives was talking over WhatsApp about assassinating Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
Ubed Ahmed Mirza and Mohammad Kasim Stimberwala were arrested in October last year and the chargesheet was filed before the chief judicial magistrate in Ankleswar of Bharuch district last month.
While Mirza was practising at the Surat district court, Stimberwala was a laboratory technician at a hospital. They have been slapped with IPC sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 121-A (sedition) and 125 (waging war against any Asiatic power in alliance with India), along with the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
It was reported that Mirza showed wanted to buy pistols while talking to one of his associates over WhatsApp on September 10, 2016. In reply, a person named ‘Ferrari’ said, “Yeah, let’s take (Prime Minister) Modi out with a sniper rifle Insha-Allah”.
In an earlier WhatsApp conversation, traced by ATS, the unidentified person reportedly told Mirza about ISIS’s plan to carry out attacks in India, especially on foreigners, with machetes and big knives because buying weapons and assembling explosives would be risky.
ATS claimed that both the arrested men were in touch with Jamaica-based radical preacher Abdullah el-Faisal and suspected ISIS handler Shafi Armar. Faisal and Armar reportedly radicalised Mirza and Stimberwala on the jihadi ideology of the IS to carry out attacks on Jews. Faisal and Armar were also planning to radicalise some others to help the local operatives in carrying out attacks in India. They had even carried out recces to zero in on a few target areas. ATS has launched a search operation to identify ‘Ferrari.’
