NIA set to probe case related to 3 Kashmiri students having terror links

The Punjab government has decided to hand over to the NIA a case involving three Kashmiri students who were arrested for their alleged association with a terror outfit.

The students -- Zahid Gulzar, Mohd. Idriss Shah and Yusuf Rafiq Bhatt -- were arrested from an engineering college in Jalandhar last month and two weapons, including an assault rifle, and explosives were seized from them.

Police had said they were associated with Kashmir-based terror outfit Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH).

The AGH reportedly has links with the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and is headed by Zakir Rashid Bhatt alias Zakir Mussa, who masterminded and guided attacks on the Maqsudan police station in Jalandhar on September 14, they had said.

The decision to hand over the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) was taken after discussions on the issue between the state government and the Home Ministry, Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Suresh Arora said in an release said.

It said the decision came in the wake of the inter-state and international ramifications of the case".

The students were arrested in a joint operation by the Punjab Police and the Jammu and Kashmir Police's Special Operations Group (SoG) from the hostel of CT Institute of Engineering Management and Technology in Shahpur on the outskirts of Jalandhar.

Two weapons, including an assault rifle, were also seized from them along with explosives, police had said.

Initial investigations had revealed that the students were allegedly associated with terror outfit AGH, they had said.

The decision to hand over the investigations to the NIA was aimed at ensuring speedy and more effective probe into the matter, the DGP said