Intelligence inputs with the police have revealed that Chennai has now come on the “terror-radar” and the Sunday crackdown by the Central and state intelligence units against a cell of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) was a timely hit that prevented what could have been a major disaster in the crowded city.
“It was a timely wake-up call. We were lucky to have knocked on the cell, but that was possible after some strenuous tracking and shadowing of the suspects over a period of time. There could be still some more sleeper cells around and we have stepped up vigil,” a senior officer told this newspaper on the condition of unanimity.
He refused to go into details of the operation that led to the arrest of Delhi’s Irshad Khan along with his nephew Abdul Rahman, a engineering student, at suburban Selaiyur on Sunday. Imran, alias Asif, one of the most-wanted members of the IM, who had come from Delhi with Irshad Khan and was reportedly providing the financial and logistical backup for the IM modules, has vanished. Three more engineering students were also picked up along with the duo but were released after questioning, while the uncle-nephew team was taken to New Delhi for interrogation.
Another source revealed that Irshad and his accomplices were going around “two or three very crowded areas of Chennai during the peak hours” for a couple of days before they were arrested. “They were not there for shopping obviously; so what were they doing there? The answer is obvious.