Guwahati, Mar 20: In a major breakthrough, a team from the Special Task Force (STF) of Assam Police, apprehended two top rung ISIS leaders during a manhunt launched along the international border in the Dhubri sector early morning on Wednesday.
Official sources said that information was received by the STF from sister agencies that two top rung leaders of ISIS in India who were camping in a neighbouring country would cross over to India in the Dhubri sector to carry out sabotage activities.
Based on the input, the STF team, led by IGP (STF) Parthasarathi Mahanta, and comprising additional SP, STF, Kalyan Kumar Pathak, and other ranks, was deputed to locate and apprehend the accused persons, who are also wanted accused of NIA.
The STF team had proceeded to Dhubri in the evening hours of Tuesday.
“Thereafter, a manhunt was launched along the International Border and the accused persons were detected in the Dharmasala area of Dhubri after they had crossed the international border around 4.15 am on Wednesday,” an official said.
The ISIS leaders were subsequently apprehended and later brought to the STF office in Guwahati. They were identified as Haris Farooqi alias Harish Ajmal Farukhi of Chakrata, Dehradun, who is the head of ISIS in India, and his associate, Anurag Singh alias Rehan of Diwana, Panipat, who converted to Islam. Singh’s wife is a Bangladeshi national.
“Both of them are highly indoctrinated and motivated leaders/ members of ISIS in India. They had furthered the cause of ISIS in India through conspiracies to carry out recruitment, terror funding and terror acts by means of IEDs at several places across India,” the official said.
“Several cases are pending against them at NIA, Delhi, ATS, Lucknow, etc. STF, Assam will hand over the fugitives to NIA for taking up further legal action against them,” he said.