A suspected terrorist believed to be part of a group that was planning a major terror attack in Uttar Pradesh was killed early Wednesday morning after nearly 12 hours of anti-terror operation in Lucknow. According to police sources, the target of the operation was a house in Haji Ali Colony in Thakurganj, on the outskirts of Lucknow. The standoff began early Tuesday evening, hours after at least ten people were injured in a blast on the Ujjain Express.
Previously there were reports of two terrorists being holed up in the room, however, as it turned out, only one suspect was found dead along with weapons.
"After opening the doors of the house (where the terrorist was holed up), the force went inside and found the suspect dead along with weapons," Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Daljit Chaudhary said.
Chaudhary said that the operation "stands closed now. Rest of the legal formalities will subsequently take place."
The IG ATS Aseem Arun confirmed that the slain terror suspect was an active member of the ISIS.
"The slain terror suspect belongs to the Khurasan module of the ISIS and was an active member. But, whether he has been indoctrinated or not is a matter of investigation," Arun said. ALSO READ: ATS guns down IS suspect in Lucknow after 11-hour operation
Anti-terror operations were carried out to get hold of terrorists, suspected to be linked with the Bhopal-Ujjain train blast near Jabdi station in Shajapur district of Madhya Pradesh yesterday in which at least 10 people were injured, three of them seriously.
Speaking to the media after the anti-terror operation was over, Arun said, "Efforts were made to catch the suspected terrorist (identified as Saifullah) alive, but unfortunately this did not materialise. We fired tear gas shells and chilly bombs, so that he comes out. But, he did not come out."
Here is all you need to know about the Lucknow siege
The operation and the blast both came a day before today's seventh phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh
Timeline of events
* ATS IG Asim Arun confirms that the slain terror suspect was an active member of the ISIS
* Siege ends around 3 am on Wednesday. Militant is killed.
* Firing intensified towards the end of Tuesday when he refused to surrender. Earlier the police using chilli bombs and stun grenades to flush out the militant
* The UP Additional Director General of Police revealed they had made Saiful speak to his brother in order to convince him to surrender, reports India Today.
* Lucknow siege went on for 12 hours.
* Early Tuesday evening, Uttar Pradesh Police carries out raids, arresting two men in Kanpur and one from Etawah. The third raid targets the Thakuganj, Lucknow home
* At 1.30 pm, a bus is intercepted near Pipariya in Madhya Pradesh's Hoshangabad district, 145 kilometres east of Bhopal. Three people are detained in connection with the morning's train blast.
* At around 9 am on Tuesday, March 7, a blast takes place in a compartment of the Bhopal-Ujjain Express, near Bhopal.
ISIS shadow falls on the Indian soil
Had the terror plot succeeded, this would have been ISIS' first attack on the Indian soil. Last month, a youth from Kerala, believed to have joined the ISIS had been killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan. The message was received by a distant relative of Hafesudheen Theke Koleth in Kasaragod, Kerala, who was from the missing 21-member group who have left the nation.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is already probing the ISIS nexus in Kasaragod, had been informed of this development.
ISIS targets educated Indians
National Investigation Agency (NIA) data revealed that Islamic State was recruiting educated Indian youth to join them in terror activities.
Breaking the myth that radicalised youth are mostly impoverished illiterates, NIA officials said they were “shocked” to learn that all the arrested persons were educated and were radicalised by the recruiters of the network that has established an Islamic caliphate in its governed parts of Syria and Iraq.
The NIA data said 20 of the arrested Islamic State supporters were graduates and some even had degrees in technology or engineering.
Twelve had diplomas, four had attended school up to Class 12 and 13 were matriculates. Three even held post graduate degrees.
“Eighty per cent arrested IS accused had formal schooling while 20% went to madrasa,” according to the data analysis.
Nine of the arrested suspects belonged to the upper income group, 30 were from middle income group and 13 from the lower income group.
The counter-terror agency said it had filed charges and supplementary charges in six of the 12 Islamic State cases referred to it by the central government last year. It said the agency was still searching for 35 identified absconding suspects.
The agency officials said investigation was on in eight cases.
According to the data, 12 of the arrested were from Maharashtra, 10 from Hyderabad, 11 from Kerala, five from Karnataka and West Bengal each, four from Uttar Pradesh, two from Rajasthan, three from Tamil Nadu and one each from Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
It further said 50% of the arrested IS sympathisers followed Ahle Hadith -- a puritannic Islamic school of thought, 30% Tablighi Jamat -- a worldwide movement to preach fundamentals of Islam, and 20% Deobandi -- the puritanical, revivalist Sunni Muslim movement that began in north India in 1867 and now carries a huge influence in Bangladesh, Pakistan and also parts of the United Kingdom. The data said 15% recruits were converts from Christianity or Hinduism.
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