Sources in Maharashtra police on Sunday informed that the 11 alleged terrorists arrested in Karnataka had spilled beans on the four suspected terrorists arrested from Nanded. The police is now trying to find out whether they were to carry out independent operations in Maharashtra or were just acting as a sleeper cell of the Karnataka module.
According to ATS sources, the accused have been identified as Mohammed Muzammil (29), Irfan Shaikh (25), Mohammed Ilyas (27) and Mohammed Sadique (27). They were picked up from various parts of Nanded on Friday night after the ATS received a tip off about their whereabouts.
After being questioned through the night, they were placed under arrest on Saturday morning.
“Just after the Bengaluru police busted the module of 11 members, they had reportedly alerted the Maharashtra ATS stating that some members of the module might be present in Nanded that is a bordering district of Karanataka,” said a police source.
According to the source, the ATS are now interrogating the quartet on whether they are the part of the same module. “The ATS officers are grilling the four persons on whether they belong to the module and whether they had chosen to stay in Nanded as a safe hideout. They are also questioning the four on whether they were planning any independent operations in Maharashtra or were just waiting for the orders being part of a sleeper cell. Also there is a similarity in both the Bengaluru and the Maharashtra cases. In both incidents, the police recovered pistols and cartridges from the accused,” said the source.
The ATS officers had recovered two .32 bore revolvers and 14 live rounds from the accused. Earlier this week, the Bengaluru police had arrested 11 men including a scientist and a journalist and had recovered pistols from them. The 11 persons were allegedly planning to strike prominent individuals in the state.