Terror suspect Ghazi Baba was in touch with Punjab youths: ATS

Self-radicalised terror suspect Ghazi Baba, recently arrested from Jalandhar, is believed to have been in touch with some youngsters in Punjab and tried to rope them in for formation of a sleeper cell, say police.
"Ghazi Baba alias Muzammil was arrested in Jalandhar last Thursday by the UP ATS during a pan-India operation involving police of various states," a senior officer of UP ATS said.
He said Ghazi Baba was reportedly in touch with a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) operative.
"During interrogation, Ghazi Baba revealed that he was in touch with JeM operative Sajid. He came in contact with Sajid in 2012 through Facebook. By this time, he was influenced and radicalised by the pro-jihadi thought.

"Later in 2015 when his father came to know that he has been influenced by pro-jihadi thought, his parents took him away from the social media. But he again reappeared on the social media in November 2016," the UP ATS officer said.
Ghazi Baba is among the four terror suspects arrested by UP ATS, the other three being Umar alias Nazim (arrested from Mumbai), Muftii alias Faizan (arrested from Bijnore) and Zaqwan alias Ehtesham (arrested from Bihar's Narkatiyaganj).

Police said that an alert has been sounded in Amroha, Bijnore and Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh after certain disclosures made by Mufti and Zaqwan.

"The terror suspects had even planned to target a Shia worship place in Amroha," the senior UP ATS officer said.
The suspect had also planned a bomb attack at a crowded place in Haridwar.
"Plans were also made to eliminate a police officer in Mumbai and set fire to a sugar mill in Narkatiyaganj in Bihar," he said.
Mufti and Zaqwan were on Saturday taken on eight-day remand by ATS for quizzing.
Umar and Ghazi Baba were produced in the court of special chief judicial magistrate on April 24, after they were brought to Lucknow on transit remand.
The court sent them to judicial custody till May 4, police said.

The four terror suspects, who were recently arrested from different parts of the country, had tried to target Tarek Fatah, the Pakistan-born Canadian author and liberal activist.
However, the self-radicalised terror suspects eventually realised that it was not easy to target the author, so they went ahead with an alternative plan to target other places and persons in order to make their presence felt.
Fatah was targeted as he was seen as opposing the Shariat law and an advocate of liberal and progressive form of Islam.