The Delhi Police’s much hyped claims about busting a Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) module is an exaggeration, a senior home ministry official told The Hindu .
The government is peeved with Delhi Police for announcing that the three men arrested on terror charges on Wednesday, were ‘patronised’ by Pakistan based terror outfit. The official told The Hindu that the men were “radicalised” and inspired by the Islamic State (IS) but the Jaish link appeared farfetched.
The official said that strict instructions were passed to Special Cell of Delhi Police to not implicate “innocent” persons. Apart from the three arrests, Delhi Police also detained nine other men, who were reportedly in touch with the accused. They were still being questioned, an official said.
According to Delhi Police, the main accused Sajid (19), a tailor had admitted that he was a member of JeM. While Sajid and Sameer hail from Gokalpur in northeast Delhi and neighbouring Loni district in Uttar Pradesh respectively, Shakir is a resident of Deoband in Uttar Pradesh
“In 2014, when Sajid was 17 years old, he came across a website of JeM and was inspired by the speech of Masood Azhar, the terror outfit’s chief. In the past one year, however, he started looking at the speeches of a local cleric Abdus Sami Qasmi and veered towards pan-Islamism propagated by IS,” said the official.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested Sami, a resident of Seelampur in Delhi from Hardoi (U.P) in February this year for allegedly delivering provocative and inflammatory speeches in the support of the Caliphate. NIA had arrested 25 men across the country for alleged links to IS and Sami was alleged to have inspired few of them.
“Delhi Police should have done due diligence and gathered all evidence before jumping to a conclusion that the men belonged to JeM. There are several radicalised young men who are deeply influenced by the Islamic State. This was one such group, arresting all of them does not serve any purpose,” said the official.
A press release issued by Special Cell said, “On 18.4.2016, the operation took a definitive shape when it was learnt that it was JeM, the banned Pakistani terrorist organisation, which was patronising the rabid leaders of this group.”
