Delhi Police confirms busting AQIS module

The accused would be taken to New Delhi in transit remand by the Delhi Police and IB after being produced in the Salepur court in Cuttack district.

A suspected Al Qaeda terrorist, Maulana Abdul Rehman, has been arrested in Odisha’s Cuttack district, police said on Wednesday.

Odisha police have arrested one person for suspected links to Al Qaeda from Cuttack. The duo have been booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, said Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Arvind Deep in Delhi.

In May this year, intelligence agencies intensified surveillance to ascertain whether the Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which back then released a video clip making a personal reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was making any recruitment attempts in the country.

While Asif was picked up from northeast Delhi’s Seelampur locality, Rahman was apprehended by a joint team of the Delhi police and Bhubaneswar-Cuttack commissionerate police from his house in Jagatpur area of Cuttack in Orissa.

Rehman is suspected to have hyperlinks in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, United Kingdom and Pakistan.

The Delhi Police has also seized a laptop and three cell phones from Asif’s possession. This is the third arrest of a suspected terrorist in two days.

The two youths detained by the police were already under the Special Cell’s scanner. There, he said, Asif, a 37-year-old father of two, received only ideological instruction, because of ill health, before being sent home in October 2014, to recruit more Indian nationals. He was soon taken to an undisclosed location for interrogation.

Asif is reportedly a native of Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh.