Two terror suspects, with Qaeda links, arrested in Delhi

New Delhi: Just a few days before Independence Day, the sleuths of the Delhi police special cell in a major catch arrested two men with suspected links to Al Qaeda in two separate cases on Wednesday. In the first case, the police arrested 29-year-old Syed Mohammed Zishan Ali, suspected to be linked to the terror outfit. He was arrested from IGI Airport on Tuesday after being deported from Saudi Arabia.

The police said that the police were on the lookout for him ever since three alleged AQIS (Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent) operatives were arrested in 2015. Ali is married to the sister of Sabeel Ahmed, who was arrested in connection with the Glasgow Airport attack in 2007, only to be released later. His brother, Kafeel Ahmed, had died in the suicide attack.

He was involved in assembling “disgruntled and radicalised” youth and training them at camps that the AQIS was planning to set up here, the police said. The special cell got onto Ali’s trail following arrests of suspected AQIS members in December 2015, who had revealed that Ali was a key member. He was even declared a proclaimed offender, they added. 

After the arrest of the suspected members, it was revealed that Ali was operating for AQIS from Saudi Arab On Wednesday, the police was informed about 30 Indians, including Ali, being deported from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, due to visa violation. Ali was nabbed from the IGI Airport, said the officer.

In the second case, 25-year-old Raja-ul-Ahmed, with links to Al Qaeda, was arrested on August 1 by the Delhi police following a tip-off from the West Bengal police. A senior officer from the Delhi police said that Ahmed was apprehended on July 31 and formally arrested in August 1. He did not divulge details about the place of arrest. He was wanted in smuggling of fake Indian currency note (FICN) by the West Bengal police, who alerted their counterparts here about his place of hiding, an officer said.

Ahmed is a suspected member of Ansarullah Bangla Team, an Al Qaeda-inspired group in Bangladesh. Later in the day, Zishan Ali was produced before a Delhi court, which rema-nded him in custody of city police for two weeks for interrogation in a case of terror funding. The deportation of Ali assumes significance as security agencies  have cracked down on members of various terror outfits, particularly in the Kashmir Valley.