Police arrest Hizbul Mujahideen operative in Kanpur, claim he was planning outfits expansion in Assam

The Lucknow Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested a suspected terrorist from Kanpur and claim that he is the same person whose photograph on September 12. He was identified as Qamer-Uz-Zaman, the same person whose photograph of holding an AK 57 rifle was released in April by a Twitter account claiming to be the mouthpiece of Hizbul Mujahideen.

The interrogation has revealed that Qamer hails from Hojai in Assam, a state, where the terrorist outfit was not active till now.

Assam Police has joined the probe and based on information provided by Qamer-Uz-Zaman, his childhood friend Shahnawaz Alam, 39, was arrested from Hojai on September 15. Shahnawaz's arrest led to seven more arrests in the state, including Qamer’s elder brother Saif-ul-Islam.

According to the police, a Hizbul Mujahideen leader from Jammu and Kashmir came to Assam a few months ago with an aim to set up a base in the state and start the recruitment. He visited Assam in the garb of a religious preacher. The Assam Police have launched a hunt for this terrorist of Kashmiri origin.

During interrogation, Qamer revealed that he had visited Assam and Meghalaya in the month of August, before moving to Kanpur. The timing was significant as the state was on the edge after the publication of the final draft of the National Register of Citizens(NRC) on July 30.

The NRC excluded 4 million of the 32 million people residing in Assam. Additional central forces were sent to the state and Assam Police was on high alert as the government anticipated anti-social elements to take advantage of the tension and trigger violence in the state.

While those who have been excluded from the draft of NRC now have a two-month window starting from September 25 to make another claim for inclusion of their names. However, there is still no clarity on what will happen to those who will be left out of the final NRC. As a section of them are likely to be illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, the activities of a radical Islamic terror group may pose serious law and order threat to the state.

Assam Police and Union Home Ministry have taken this development very seriously. A team of National Investigation Agency (NIA ) has already reached Assam and been interrogating the suspects arrested till now. "Our investigation is on. We are confident that we will not let any such force to disrupt peace, law, and order in the state," said Assam DGP Kula Saikia.

For over a decade several terror outfits including Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, HUJI, and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen of Bangladesh have been trying to spread their wings in the state. Soon, after the Burdwan blast in West Bengal in 2014, the Assam Police had arrested 57 Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen operatives of Bangladesh.

The probe has revealed that during his visit to Assam, Qamer and his associates did the recce of several areas with a plan to blast the Lumding railway station and the Gita Ashram in Hojai. Lumding is a major railway division in the Northeast and Gita Ashram happens to be the biggest centre of RSS in the region.

According to UP police, Qamer had undergone training in Pakistan in 2017 and joined the Hizbul Mujahideen. He also stayed abroad between 2008 and 2012. He was missing from his Hojai home since July 2017. Qamer failed in his BA third year examination but has sound knowledge of computers.

Also read: 4 Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists arrested in Assam

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