Delhi link led Gujarat ATS to Bengaluru woman held for ‘operating al Qaeda propaganda accounts'

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21 hours ago

Parveen is the fifth suspect arrested by Gujarat ATS in the last seven days on charges of promoting 'jihadi' content. Last week, ATS arrested Fardeen Shaikh from Ahmedabad and Saifulla Qureshi from Modasa in Gujarat, as well as Mohammad Faiq from Delhi's Chandni Chowk and Zeeshan Ali from Uttar Pradesh's Noida on similar charges.
The woman, identified as Shama Parveen Ansari (30), was taken into custody from her family home in Bengaluru's RT Nagar, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Sunil Joshi said in a press conference Wednesday. He added that Parveen is originally from Jharkhand.
New Delhi: The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Tuesday arrested a Bengaluru-based woman on charges of producing and publishing propaganda for the terrorist outfit al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), including speeches of its chief Asim Umar and cleric Abdul Aziz of Islamabad's Lal Masjid, on her social media platforms.
Sources in the Gujarat ATS said there is a possibility that the suspects may have been radicalised without actually coming in contact with any active operative of the AQIS but the investigation is still in a nascent stage.
The then al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, officially announced the existence of AQIS on 3 September, 2014, and identified Pakistan-based Asim Umar as its leader. The stated aim of the outfit was to further ideological objectives of al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent with Myanmar, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujarat and Kashmir as regions of operation.
The matter first came to the attention of ATS on 10 June this year after deputy superintendent of police (DSP), Harsh Upadhyay, received 'intelligence' about five Instagram accounts actively sharing al Qaeda propaganda videos to radicalise young recruits. These accounts were identified as sharyat_ya_shahadat, f4rdeen_03, _mujahideen1, mujahideen.3 and sefullah_muja_hid313.
Content uploaded on these accounts attempted to incite Indian Muslims to commit violence or acts of terror against 'non-believers', encourage armed rebellion against the democratically-elected Government of India, and promote the establishment of a Shariat-based Caliphate in the country, DIG Sunil Joshi said in a press conference last week.
Investigators said they found, on a device recovered from Fardeen Shaikh, AQIS literature promoting 'jihad' against India for 'Operation Sindoor' and a purported video of him waving a sword and chanting: 'This was the only thing missing, now it's complete; Allahu Akbar.'
Gujarat ATS also found that one of the suspects, Mohammad Faik, was allegedly collaborating with Pakistan-based Instagram accounts 'gujjar_sab.111' and 'M Salauddin Siddiqui 1360' to target the Indian government.
DIG Joshi said investigators reached Parveen's doorsteps after questioning Faiq, who allegedly confessed to having downloaded the majority of these propaganda videos from one Instagram account named 'strangers_nation02'.
'The accused Mohammad Faiq s/o Mohammad Rizwan, via his Instagram account sharyat_ya_shahadat, had posted inciting and provocative videos calling for Jihad, Ghazwa-e-Hind, terror attacks and spreading hatred toward non-believers (kafirs). He had downloaded this content from the Instagram account 'strangers_nation02' as well as Facebook pages 'Strangers Of The Nation' and 'Strangers Of The Nation 2', edited them, reposted them, and interacted with the users of these accounts,' DIG Joshi said in the press conference Wednesday.
After this, ATS began investigating administrators of these accounts and found Parveen had allegedly been operating them from Bengaluru. Upon examining her devices, the ATS said she posted inflammatory speeches of AQIS chief Umar, as well as those of Abdul Aziz, who is infamous for his anti-India rhetoric. She was taken into custody from Bengaluru Tuesday and will be produced before a local court in Ahmedabad Wednesday.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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