Guwahati, Dec 25 The Special Task Force (STF) of Assam Police has arrested two more members of the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a Bangladesh-based terror group affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), top police official said.
Assam Police Special Director General of Police Harmeet Singh said that Abdul Zaher Sheikh and Sabbir Mirdha were arrested from Namapara in Kokrajhar district on Tuesday night.
"With the arrest of the two more ABT cadres, the STF achieved a huge success in averting a possible major terror act by fundamentalist/Jihadi elements of a Global Terrorist Organisation (GTO)," he told the media.
Earlier, eight ABT operatives were arrested from Assam, West Bengal, and Kerala.
After the interrogation of the detainees, a huge cache of arms and ammunition and other war-like items were recovered from the hideout of one of the arrested accused persons.
The recovered arms and ammunition include four handmade rifles, that are made to look like AKs, 34 rounds of live ammunition, 24 rounds of blank cartridges, one pair of live un-primed IED with cortex, one hand-made grenade with explosives, one circuit of detonators made out of agricultural equipment, 14 electronic switches, three iron cases used for making of IEDs with 20 iron pieces and plates for causing maximum damage/destruction.
The STF as part of 'Operation Praghat' on the intervening night of December 17-18 had apprehended eight ABT operatives across Assam, West Bengal, and Kerala.
Among the eight, five were arrested in Assam's Kokrajhar and Dhubri districts, two in West Bengal, and one Bangladeshi national in Kerala.
Of the eight arrests, Bangladeshi national Muhammad Sad Radi a.k.a. Md Shab Seikh (32), a resident of Rajshahi in Bangladesh, was apprehended from Kerala.
Assam Police Special Director General earlier said that the eight persons were handlers in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and they were working to form 'sleeper cells' in different parts of India and there were plans to assassinate leaders belonging to the Hindu community and RSS, besides undertaking violent and subversive activities in India.
The Special DGP said that the 'Operation Praghat' was launched in November after a detailed and prolonged examination of intelligence input regarding the clandestine anti-national activities being carried out by a group of individuals under the direction of Md Farhan Israk, a close associate of Jasimuddin Rahmani.
Rahmani, according to the police officer, is the ABT Chief.
The operation was launched under the direct supervision of STF Chief Partha Sarathi Mahanta.
Earlier this month, the Assam Police STF also arrested five Pakistan-linked terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members from Kokrajhar and Dhubri.
Four JeM operatives have been arrested from Kokrajhar district, while one JeM linkman was arrested from Dhubri district, a police officer said.
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