Gujarat Anti-Terror squad: ISIS terror suspects planned attack on Jews in Mumbai

The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad filed a chargesheet in a court in Ankleshwar town of Bharuch district against two suspected ISIS operatives who were arrested last year.

While the accused, Mohammad Kasim Stimberwala and Ubed Ahmed Mirza, were arrested on charges of planning a ‘lone wolf’ attack on a Jewish synagogue in Khadia area of Ahmedabad, the chargesheet claimed that they had also planned attacks on the Jewish community in Mumbai.

The two men wanted to carry out the attack in Mumbai as more Jews lived there compared to Ahmedabad, claimed the over 1,500 pages’ chargesheet, filed in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate RD Mehta.

The chargesheet was filed in Ankleshwar as one of the suspects was arrested from there in October last year.

While Stimberwala worked as a laboratory technician at a hospital in Ankleshwar, Mirza was a lawyer practising in the Surat district court.

Both were “highly radicalised by the Jihadi ideology of the Islamic State and actively planning lone wolf attacks on Jews”, it claimed.

Abdullah el-Faisal, a radical preacher based in Jamaica, and suspected ISIS handler Shafi Armar were shown as “absconding” in the chargesheet.

The arrested men were in touch with el-Faisal and Shafi Armar to plan attacks on Jews in India, and conducted reconnaissance of some of the targets. They were also planning to send radicalised men outside India to take part in terrorist acts, the chargesheet said.

Though Stimberwala and Mirza tried to procure weapons through their contacts in Delhi and Lucknow, they failed, said the chargesheet.

Apart from planning a ‘lone-wolf’ attack on the synagogue, they also planned on carrying out attacks in Nariman Point area in Mumbai where a large population of Jews live, it said.

Both have been charged with criminal conspiracy, sedition and waging war against any Asiatic power in alliance with India, under sections of the Indian Penal Code. They were also charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

El-Faisal was subsequently detained in Jamaica on the charge of persuading young men to travel to Syria to take up jihad, the FIR had said.

Source: NDTV