New Delhi [India], September 11 : Delhi's Patiala House Court on Thursday granted 12 days' custody of Ashhar Danish and Kamran Qureshi to Delhi Police Special Cell. Delhi police have arrested both in a case allegedly linked with a Pakistan handler backed pan-India ISIS terror module.
Duty Magistrate Vanshika Mehta granted 12 days' custody after hearing the submissions of the investigation officer. Both accused were produced before the court after their arrest from Ranchi, Jharkhand and Rajgarh, Madhya Pradesh.
Delhi police sought a 14-day remand of Ashhar Danish and Kamran Qureshi to interrogate them.
Investigation officer (IO) submitted that the accused has been arrested in a case linked to radicalising youth through social media to participate in terror activities. They have been arrested on the basis of technical and other evidence.
It was also submitted that on September 9, an input was received that the other two accused are in Delhi and they have arms and ammunition. Police conducted a raid and arrested Aftab Ansari and Sufiyan Abubakar, and recovered two pistols and 50 live cartridges from their possession.
The accused were produced before the court on Wednesday. The court granted 8 days' custody. They are being interrogated.
After their arrest, Ashhar Danish and Kamran Qureshi were arrested from outside Delhi and brought here on transit remand.
IO submitted that Danish and Kamran were required to be interrogated in connection with the material recovered from them, including some chemicals used for making an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).
Remand counsel Shehzad Alam appeared on behalf of the accused persons and opposed the police custody. It was submitted by the counsel that the same arguements were made yesterday also while seeking the remand of two other accused. The custodial remand should not be granted.
After hearing both sides, the court granted 12 days of police custody of Ashhar Danish and Kamran Qureshi. The fifth man, Huzaifa, has been arrested from Nizamabad, Telengana.
According to the Delhi police, sulphur powder, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, sodium bicarbonate, a pH weighing checker, ball bearings, and equipment that can be used for making an IED, as well as wires, motherboards, laptops, mobile phones, and weapons and cartridges, have been found in their possession.
It is alleged that the Pak handler, who was tasked with them, had the task of adopting a Khilafat model. They had to acquire a place and prepare a team of many people. The leader of the team had an ID Ghazwa Leader, and he kept his code name as CEO.
Delhi police said that the central character in this was Danish. All five people who were arrested are young boys between 20 to 26 years of age. Danish is from Jharkhand; major recovery has been made from him. He was in touch with the handler of Pakistan, and he had connected the whole group.
"He had a Ghazwa leader ID, and he was referred to as the CEO. The other character with him was Aftab Ansari. He lives near Mumbai and is a resident of the Thane district. His task was targeted killing. For which he had acquired weapons from somewhere, and when he was about to return from Delhi after acquiring weapons, he and his associate, Sufiyan Abubakar, were arrested ", police said.