A day after arrest of the two ISIS suspects arrest, a local court in Rajkot sent both of them to 12-day police remand on Monday for their further investigations over their connections within the country as well as overseas.
The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) personnel nabbed two brothers - Wasim Ramodia and Naeem Ramodia hailing from Saurashtra region’s main city Rajkot on Sunday afternoon. The cops arrested Wasim from Rajkot and Naeem from Bhavnagar almost simultaneously after keeping tab on them for around one year.
The court granted 12-day remand till March 10, 2017. Apparently, both brothers confessed of their intent of making bombs to carry out blasts at some religious places in the Saurashtra. The suspects were sent to remand without being represented by any defence lawyer as the lawyers in the local court refused to represent any of the accused brothers.
“We will now interrogate both in great detail to get a complete picture, whether they were alone or in touch with any more youth from the state, where did they source material for building explosives and their detailed plans,” RD Faldu, Deputy SP, ATS, said.
Ramodia brothers with suspected ISIS links and hatching plan to conduct lone-wolf attacks in the state were allegedly in constant contact with their Islamic State (IS) handlers through social media. They had planned attack on famous Chotila temple situated on the top of the hillock on way from Ahmedabad to Rajkot. Some other religious places in the state were also on their radar.
A case has been registered by the ATS officials against the duo under unlawful activity and prevention act as well as explosive substance act and arrested them for further interrogation. The police said that the arrest would help them to know how they established links with IS and who helped them to do so.
The ATS had recovered 58 grams of gun powder, two face masks, a battery used for making bombs and about a dozen of crude bombs from the two arrested. The police also found eight editions of an ISIS magazine ‘Dabik’ and videos of techniques for making bombs and guerrilla warfare stored in their two lap tops. The police even recovered about 173 speeches of Mufti Kasim from mobile phones recovered from their possessions. Mufti Kasim was arrested from Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh by National Investigation Agency for links with ISIS.
Amid post arrest legal processes of suspected ISIS operatives, leader of Opposition in Gujarat legislative Assembly Shankersinh Vaghela blamed on the state government saying that if the arrested brothers were in contact with IS handlers since 2015 why they were not nabbed earlier and what was Intelligence Bureau (IB) of government doing.
Rejecting the allegation of the opposition party leader, Gujarat’s Minister of State for home Pradeepsinh Jadeja said that the state police acted as per the law but the statement of Vaghela showed Congress’s mindset in context to delay in hanging Kasab in the infamous attack Mumbai 26/11 attack.
