Maharashtra ATS conducting massive raids in Padgha over suspected terror planning activities
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), along with the Thane Rural police, is conducting massive searches at various households in the Padgha area near Bhiwandi Monday in connection with suspected terror planning activities, sources said.
The raids are being carried out by over 250 police personnel, including 20 ATS teams, at 15 places based on special intelligence received recently, the sources told The Indian Express. The epicentre of the raids, ATS sources said, is the house of terror suspect Saquib Nachan, who the NIA had claimed to be the head of the Maharashtra module of ISIS.
Who is Nachan?
Having been booked in over a dozen terror-related cases, Saquib Nachan has been under the radar of security agencies since the 1990s. He was convicted twice – once by the Supreme Court in 1997 for planning terror attacks in India in the early 1990s along with Khalistani terrorists. In 2016, he was convicted again by a court in Mumbai for 10 years under the Arms Act after being booked in the 2002-03 terror blasts in Mumbai. He served both sentences and was released in 2017.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which had raided Padgha in December 2023 among other places in Maharashtra and arrested 15 people, has previously claimed that Nachan was head of the state ISIS module which was planning to carry out destructive and violent activities in the country. Huge amounts of unaccounted cash, firearms, sharp-edged weapons, incriminating documents, smartphones and other digital devices were seized during the December 2023 raids.
According to the NIA, Nachan administered the 'bayath' or oath of allegiance to the people joining the proscribed organisation. His son Shamil Nachan was also arrested by the agency in Maharashtra in an ISIS module-related terror case.
Why Padgha
According to ATS sources, Padgha has in recent years been a hub of terror suspects. As per anti-terrorism agencies, the Maharashtra ISIS module had self-declared the village of Padgha as a 'liberated zone' and as 'Al Sham'. Terror suspects allegedly motivated impressionable Muslim youth to relocate to Padgha to strengthen their base there.
The last time NIA had raided Padgha and the Borivali area nearby, they had found that all members of the ISIS Maharashtra module were operating from Padgha-Borivali, where they had hatched a conspiracy to spread terror and carry out acts of violence across India. 'Pursuing the path of violent jihad, khilafat, etc, the accused had aimed to disturb the peace and communal harmony of the country and to wage a war against the Government of India,' the central agency had previously stated.
ISIS, a global terror organisation, has been spreading its network in India by establishing localized modules and cells in various states.
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