Won't accept traitor's body: Father of terrorist killed in Lucknow

New Delhi: Father of ISIS suspect Saifullah, who was killed in an encounter in Lucknow’s Thakurganj earlier this morning, has refused to accept his body, claiming that it was not in the country’s interest.

Speaking to ANI, Saifullah’s father Sartaj said, “This was not in country's interest. We will not accept the body of an anti-national.”

"Two-and-a-half months ago, he left home after I beat him up for not working. He called last Monday and told us that he was going to Saudi," he added, recounting the last conversation with his son.

Saifullah was killed earlier this morning by the Anti-Terror Squad after a 12-hour-long operation.

The home ministry on Wednesday said that the probe into the encounter is likely to be handed over to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). The decision was made after the ministry had leads that there might be a larger conspiracy afoot, with more people in different locations having links with Saifullah.

He belonged to an ISIS module that was preparing to conduct a massive attack on a Sufi Shrine in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki.

The men carried out an explosion on an Ujjain bound train on Tuesday as a ‘practice’ for the attack on the Sufi shrine.

Following the blast, three suspects were arrested from Madhya Pradesh after they were captured in CCTV footage, and were questioned.

During the interrogation, the men revealed that they were part of a terror group consisting nine men, all from Lucknow and Kanpur, and had pledged their allegiance to ISIS.

The leader of the gang Atif Muzzaffar was among those arrested.

Further questioning revealed that the module had rented a home in Thakurganj area near Lucknow.

Based on the tip-off, the Anti-Terror Squad arrested two more men from Kanpur and trapped Saifullah, at the Thakurganj residence. The group had reportedly rented the residence six months ago from a man called Badshah, working in Saudi Arabia.

The report revealed that the police tried to negotiate with Saifullah for long, and even got his brother Khalid on the phone.

The cops dialled Khalid and slid the phone under the door to Saifullah. When Khalid broke down and asked his brother to surrender, he was told, “I won't, I want martyrdom.”

After a long stand-off of 12 hours, the ATS finally tried to breach the house by drilling holes into the wall.

The ATS commandos then stormed inside the house (after issuing a warning to the terrorist). "The suspected terrorist then fired at the ATS commandos, which was then appropriately retaliated by the ATS commandos. After this, two rooms were thoroughly searched and checked, and the person identified as Saifullah was found dead," IG ATS Aseem Arun said.

"Efforts were made to catch the suspected terrorist alive, but unfortunately this did not materialise. We fired tear gas shells and chili bombs, so that he comes out. But, he did not come out," Arun said.

A cache of ammunitions including eight pistols, 650 rounds of ammunition, 50 fired rounds, explosives, gold, cash, passports, SIM cards and a train time table were found along with the body.