Bengaluru: Three sleeper cells with Pakistan Connections traced in a span of one month have baffled Karnataka police over the spreading network of the terror operators in the State, who wanted to blast Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
Interestingly, all the three, hailing from Uttar Pradesh, are in the age group of 20-25 and they were in touch with a Pakistani operator Rana, whose number had been recorded in their mobile phones.
On Wednesday, the Harihara police in Davanagere district arrested Sohail (20) and handed him over to Tumkur police, who are investigating the network for the last one month. Sohail, hailing from Laknothi village in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh had come down to Ballodi village about 20 days ago and joined his brother and others from his native, who were working as painters in an upcoming factory.
Initially, they picked up eight members, including Sohail's brother, but let the seven go and took Sohail to their custody. During the interrogation, Sohail confessed that he wanted to be part of the organisation, which wanted to blow up Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
His mobile phone contained Hindi-Urdu mix audio clippings, messages, photos of Sohail holding guns in his hands, photos resembling terrorists and some documents pertaining to conspiracy.
He was continuously in touch with Rana of Pakistan, whose name he had saved as `Rana Ji' in his phone, where he expressed desire to blow up Ayodhya Ram Mandir and grow up as a hard core extremist to save Islam. Besides, he was active in many Pakistan based WhatsApp groups run by extremist groups like `Mammon and Juttu 333', `Rana Bhai 333' and had subscribed to VIP Public channel. Besides, he had downloaded many Pakistan based applications on his mobile phone and was constantly in touch with many Pakistanis through chat.
The entire network started coming out when the Tumkur police, based on inputs from the Central agencies had arrested Alla Baksh (22) from Tumkur, who was working as a mason in a construction site. Initial questioning did not reveal anything, but when the police opened his phone, his Pakistan connections came to light. During interrogation, Alla Baksh revealed the name of Zameer Ahamed, who was working in a construction site at Davanagere. The Davanagere police picked him up and handed him over to the Tumkur police. After a fortnight of interrogation, the police got clue on Sohail.
