A day after two high-ranking leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were arrested in Assam's Dhubri, IGP (STF) Partha Sarathi Mahanta stated that the Assam Police had taken swift action after credential inputs were received by a central agency about 15 days ago.
Addressing a press conference at the Assam Police headquarters, IGP Mahanta stated that the STF personnel were deployed in the probable areas of movement of the ISIS leaders in Dhubri.
Partha Sarathi Mahanta said, “Around 15 days ago, we received intelligence from a central agency that there could be movements of ISIS leaders in certain parts of the Dhubri Sector. This was credible information, which prompted a special task force to take action. We deployed our men to the probable areas of movement. By March 18th we could narrow down our focus and by the 19th we received specific information about the likely movement.”
"Therefore, I took an STF team along with Additional SP Kalyan Kumar Pathak and we went to the general area of Dharmasala in Dhubri. On the 18th morning, we found two men, who were apparently looking for transport to move to their destination. We had photographs of the top-level leaders of ISIS with us, and two of the photographs matched with these two men," he added.
Further IGP Mahanta further said that they could be immediately as accused Haris Farooqi, the head of ISIS (operations) in India.
“Haris Farooqi alias Harish Ajmal Farukhi S/o Ajmal Farooqi of Chakrata, Dehradun is the head of ISIS in India and his associate Anurag Singh alias Rehan S/o Manbir Singh of Diwana, Panipat got converted to Islam and his wife is a Bangladeshi national. Haris is an expert in recruitment, he is an expert in indoctrination, he can indoctrinate people, brain wash people very easily,” Mahanta said.
“NIA had already shared with us that these two guys are wanted in their case. Therefore, we shared this information with NIA and they immediately came over. And since they have a pending case, we have handed over these two guys to NIA,” IGP Mahanta said, adding that they have been arrested by the NIA and being produced in the court.
