ISIS 'India head,' associate planned to carry out IED explosions across India: Assam police

Guwahati: Police in Assam says preliminary investigation suggests that Haris Farooqi, "head of Islamic State in Indian Subcontinent (ISIS)" and his associate Anurag Singh alias Rehan were planning to carry out IED explosions across India.

Farooqi alias Harish Ajmal Farukhi, a resident of Chakrata in Dehradun and Anurag alias Rehan, who originally hails from Panipat, were arrested on Wednesday at Dharamsala area in Assam's Dhubri district soon after they crossed the border from Bangladesh and entered India. Dhubri, a Muslim majority district, shares a border with Bangladesh and a stretch of river border has still remained unfenced.

Following their arrests, Police claimed that Farooqi heads the India operations of ISIS while Anurag got converted to Islam and got married to a Bangladeshi girl.

"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," said a statement issued by Assam Police.

They duo were arrested by a special task force of Assam Police headed by IGP Parthasarathi Mahanta and additional SP (STF), Kalyan Kumar Pathak.

Both of them are wanted by the NIA. Assam Police had last year arrested several Muslim youths for allegedly being part of a network of a Bangladesh-based Islamic terror group. The case was subsequently handed over to the NIA.

"Several cases are pending against them at NIA, Delhi and ATS, Lucknow. STF, Assam will hand over the accused to NIA for taking up further legal actions against these fugitives," said the statement