Uttarakhand (Islamist/Other Conflicts): Timeline (Terrorist Activities) -2016

Acting on a tip off that terrorists are planning to target the ongoing Ardh Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, the Special Cell of Delhi Police in a joint operation with a central intelligence agency on January 19 arrested four suspected terrorists from different areas in Uttarakhand, reports India TV. While one person, identified as Akhlaq, who is said to be associated with an international terror group, was arrested from Roorkee, the remaining three were arrested from Mangalaur area near Dehradun. Akhlaq will be brought to Delhi today (January 20) where Police will produce him before a court. He is said to be associated with an international terror group.Police said that they are interrogating the three friends of Akhlaq to establish further links and are also conducting search operations throughout Uttarakhand. The suspects are believed to have been planning an attack at the ongoing Ardh Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, a police source said. Read less...

Aiming to turn nondescript matchsticks lethal, the four persons, arrested in Uttarakhand for their suspected links with Islamic State (IS), were allegedly collecting match boxes to make bombs with the explosives attached with the head of the sticks, New Indian Express reports on January 20. The suspects Akhlaq urRehman, Mohammed Osama, Mohammed Azim Shah and Mehroz were under the radar of security agencies after their suspicious online activities were detected about a few months ago. The youths used to regularly visit ISsupported websites, Facebook group and were in regular touch with some supporters of the terror group through WhatsApp, government officials said. The suspects were in touch with motivators supposedly located in IS territory in IraqSyria, resulting in their coming under the surveillance of security agencies."The youths were arrested only when they were about to launch terror strike," an official said. All the four youths were said to be graduate and well versed with internetrelated activities. The youths were arrested by Delhi Police for allegedly planning to target the ongoing Ardh Kumbh in Haridwar, particularly trains touching the holy town and some strategic locations in the national capital. They were allegedly in contact with a former Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative who later went for training in Syria and is believed to be a key member of Ansarut Tawhid (AuT) which has pledged allegiance to IS. Read less...

A person who was in constant touch with the four suspects who were arrested for planning a terror attack in Haridwar and Delhi, has been arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police on January 21, reports webindia123.com. According to sources, the four were planning to carry out terror strikes in the ongoing Ardh Kumbh mela in Haridawar. Also, the arrested suspects' links with the Pathankot terror attack (January 2) is being probed. The suspects were also planning to strike Delhi as they had carried out reconnaissance of malls in the national capital. Read less...

Delhi Police Special Cell officials are looking for two suspected militants, belonging to the Indian Mujahideen (IM) earlier but now associated with the Islamic State (IS), who allegedly radicalised the four students from Haridwar, who were earlier arrested on January 19, Hindustan Times reports on January 22. Investigators found that the four men, Akhlaq-ur-Rehman, Mohammad Azim Ushan, Mohammad Osama alias Adil and Mohammad Mehraj had more information on a module based in Pakistan than any in Syria or Iraq. Their alleged IS handler Shafi Armar was found to have been an IM man all his life who recently shifted loyalties to the Iraqi and Syrian outfit.Intelligence officials are trying to determine if various alleged IS modules being discovered in India have origins in Syria and Iraq or are being floated by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the name of the West Asian group to mislead Indian agencies.The two suspects searched by Delhi Police, were local handlers of the arrested students, Police confirmed. One belongs to south India, most probably Bhatkal in Karnataka. A special cell officer said a Police team had already been sent to Bhatkal to apprehend the man who could be part of the IM’s south India module that could not be fully neutralised in operations after a series of terror strikes between 2005 and 2009.It is suspected the handler was acting on the instructions of former IM operatives who fled to Pakistan after the 2008 Batla House encounter and later crossed over to Syria after creating their own tanzeem (branch), Ansar-ut-Tawhid-fi-Bilad-al-Hind. The key figures in that group included Sultan Armar, his brother Shafi Armar, Bada Sajid, Mirza Shadab Beig, Shahnawaz Ahmad and Afif Hassan Siddibapa. Some of them, including the Armar brothers, belonged to Bhatkal.The other local handler is said be from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh though senior special cell officers refused to comment on identities and exact locations, saying that could hamper the probe.Police teams are combing locations in Uttarakhand, Delhi and Muzaffarnagar and some places in UP to arrest militants suspected to be planning blasts at shopping malls and vital installations in the NCR, the Har ki Pauri ghat in Haridwar and trains plying between Haridwar and Roorkee.Akhlaq’s interrogation revealed that on his south Indian handler’s instructions, he visited Delhi in October 2015 and met the second handler in the walled city area. Terror strikes were allegedly planned during the meeting and the handler asked Akhlaq to meet an aide in Muzaffarnagar. Akhlaq and Mehraj met the Muzaffarnagar contact who gave them INR 50,000 to execute attacks. They were told to collect flammable material from matchsticks to be used in preparing bombs.Business Standard adds that investigators questioning the four youths are trying to ascertain the locations in  Delhi where they had allegedly planned to carry terror strikes. "We are interrogating the youths and they have been confronted with certain facts but we are yet to ascertain the module or network which they are a part of," Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Arvind Deep said. Read less...

Indians based out of Syria have formed a module of the deadly terror group Islamic State (IS) to carry out attacks back home, sources in intelligence agencies have said, IBNLive reports on January 22. Sources told that these terrorists have been recruiting in India since 2004 and that at least 60 could be active in the country now. This is a big jump from a previous estimate of 23 active IS local operatives. Intelligence agencies suspect operatives were being trained to make terror strikes in religious centres like Haridwar or tourist hotspots like Goa.The recruiters in Syria are allegedly terrorists who belonged to the homegrown Indian Mujahideen (IM) who fled the country because of the crackdown by security agencies after the 2008 Mumbai attack. These recruiters were found to be targeting Muslim youth in the southern states and Uttar Pradesh and were trying to radicalise them through cyber propaganda, sources said. The recruitments were mostly being carried out in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Read less...

High alert has been sounded in Uttarakhand after security agencies received credible inputs about the presence of terror suspects in the state, New Indian Express reports on January 27. Uttarakhand Director General of Police (DGP) B S Sidhu said one of the suspects was caught on CCTV cameras in Dehradun late on January 25.“We had inputs of movement of some suspects in the state, and issued an alert. We have also circulated an image of a suspect,” Sidhu said. The source of image, circulated by the state Police, remains in the domain of speculation. It is learnt that a CCTV camera installed outside a shop had captured the footage. Sources said the state police and intelligence agencies are on the trail of at least eight terror suspects. Read less...