ISIS operative held in Bengaluru: NIA

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday said it has arrested an Islamic State operative from Bengaluru in connection with the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) case for conspiring with Syria-based operatives of the outfit to further terror activities in India.

The counterterrorism agency said 28-year-old Abdur Rahman, an ophthalmologist at the MS Ramaiah Medical College in Bengaluru, was held on Monday following a tip-off.

The NIA said that Rahman had confessed that he was conspiring with co-accused Jahanzaib Sami and other Syria-based Islamic State operatives on secured messaging platforms to further the activities of the banned terrorist organisation.

He was allegedly in the process of developing a medical application for helping the injured Islamic State cadres in the conflict-zones and a weaponry-related application for the benefit of the fighters aligned with the group.

Rahman was said to have visited an Islamic State medical camp in Syria in early 2014 for treatment of ISIS terrorists and stayed with Islamic State operatives for 10 days before returning to India.

The NIA also carried out searches at three premises of Rahman in Bengaluru with the assistance of Karnataka Police after his arrest and seized digital devices, mobile phone, and a laptop containing incriminating material.

Rahman will be presented in a Special NIA Court here for his remand for custodial interrogation.

A case was initially registered by Delhi Police Special Cell in March 2020 after the arrest of a Kashmiri couple, Jahanzaib Sami Wani and his wife Hina Bashir Beigh, from Okhla Vihar in Jamia Nagar area here.

The couple was reported to have links with the ISKP, a banned terrorist organisation and a part of the Islamic State, and allegedly involved in subversive and anti-national activities. They were allegedly in touch with Abdullah Basith, who is already lodged in Tihar jail in another Islamic State case registered by the NIA.

During further investigation, the NIA had arrested two more accused -- Sadiya Anwar Sheikh and Nabeel Siddick Khatri, both from Pune -- on the charge of involvement in the conspiracy to further the activities of the Islamic State and ISKP in India and to carry out subversive activities in the garb of anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests.