The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested two absconders, identified as members of a sleeper module of the banned ISIS terror organization, in a 2023 case related to the fabrication and testing of IEDs in Pune, Maharashtra.
“The two men, identified as Abdullah Faiyaz Shaikh alias Diaperwala and Talha Khan, were intercepted by the Bureau of Immigration at the Mumbai International Airport T2 when they tried to return to India from Jakarta, Indonesia, where they had been hiding out. The NIA team then took them into custody and arrested them,” an official release issued here said.
The accused, who were on the run for over two years, had been declared proclaimed offenders, and a non-bailable warrant was also issued against the two by the NIA Special Court.
Moreover, the cash rewards of Rs 3 lakh each had been announced for information leading to their arrest.
The case filed by the NIA against them relates to a criminal conspiracy.
The duo, along with eight other ISIS Pune sleeper module members,who are currently in judicial custody, had conspired to carry out terrorist acts across India to disturb communal harmony of the country.
They have been chargesheeted along with the other arrested accused.
The terrorists were engaged in assembling IEDs from a rented house in Kondhwa, Pune.
They had also organised and participated in a bomb making and training workshop, besides carrying out a controlled explosion to test an IED fabricated by them, at these premises.
NIA, India’s premier probing agency, has been actively investigating the activities of ISIS in India in a bid to foil its violent and nefarious anti-India terrorist plans.
It had already chargesheeted all the 10 accused in the case under various sections of UA (P) Act, Explosive Substances Act, Arms Act and IPC.