NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, Jan 22 - In a major anti-terror swoop across the country ahead of the Republic Day, 14 youths were arrested or detained by the NIA and other security agencies in the wee hours today after they allegedly formed a module on the pattern of the dreaded ISIS to carry out strikes at vital installations.
A possible attack may have been averted with the crackdown that came at a time when the country was in a state of heightened alert, as investigators questioned the arrested youths for possible links with the ISIS. Some of the youths are stated to be software engineers.
The raids were carried out simultaneously in the five States of Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, where 14 people were �arrested or detained.� They were part of a group named Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind (Army of Caliph of India), a terror group which has almost similar ideologies with that of the ISIS.
An official spokesman of the Union Home Ministry maintained that five people have been arrested �so far� and another nine have been detained, while sources privy to the developments in Mumbai and Bangalore said eight people were detained besides the five arrests, while one person has been let off. The sources said the eight detained people are likely to be formally arrested tomorrow.
The NIA gave the names of those arrested as Muttabir Mustaq Sheikh from Thane district near Mumbai, Mohammad Nafees Khan of Hyderabad, Mohammad Shareef Mounuddin Khan of Hyderabad, Najmul Huda of Mangalore and Mohammad Afzal of Bangalore.
Family members of some of the arrested people claimed they have nothing to do with any terror plot and that they were innocent. � PTI
