Friday 19 / April / 2024
New Delhi: Four of the 10 terror suspects who were detained by Delhi Police for their alleged ideological leaning towards banned outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) were on Saturday released due to lack of adequate evidence, three days after being questioned by its Special Cell.
Delhi Police have also approached the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the Government of India's nodal agency that deals with cyber security threats, to help them in the investigation.
Of the four suspects who were detained on Saturday, three are residents of east Delhi's Chand Bagh locality and the other is from Ghaziabad's Loni area.
They were let off from the force's anti-terrorism unit Special Cell's Lodhi Colony office around 4pm.
"We have arranged for a Delhi-based clinical psychologist and the four of them have been asked to visit him on a regular basis.
The psychologist will provide us with a report on their progress every week," Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Arvind Deep said.
He said during questioning it emerged that the youths had extreme anger within them as a result of which they were vulnerable, making them potential inductees in terror rings.
The four youths were freed after investigators said they did not find adequate evidence to prove their involvement in the suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed ring, which was busted earlier this week with the arrest of three youths and Improvised Explosive Device were recovered from their possession, police sources said.
Thirteen persons were picked up by the Special Cell after a late night operation on Tuesday.
Of them, three -- Sajid, Sameer Ahmed, and Shakir Ansari -- have been arrested, four let off and six are still being questioned by the investigators.
Meanwhile, the police on Saturday approached the CERT-In to help them in the investigation, with encrypted messages and decoding online conversations which have emerged as the biggest hurdles in the probe so far, Deep said.
Most of the conversations over Whatsapp among the prime accused Sajid, his associates Sameer and Shakir, and the detained persons were found to be in Urdu, for which a translator has also been engaged.
CERT-In will make sure that access to the technical data do not lead to tampering of evidence in any way, a senior official said, adding that CERT-In will also help in decoding encrypted codes and accessing secured data, mainly exchanged during closed chats.
The police also claimed to have found several videos of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, who is wanted by India in connection with 2001 Parliament attack case and the terror strike on Pathankot Indian Air Force base in January.
Police have, however, still not been able to ascertain the source of funds for the suspects who were allegedly tasked with executing serial strikes in the city, senior officials said.
The four youths who were set free on Saturday were given counseling by community leaders and a psychiatrist before their release, sources said adding that the police is pondering over similar arrangement for all the suspects who were picked up after a series of late night raids on Tuesday.
Investigators interrogating the three youths arrested for alleged links with banned Jaish-e- Mohammed had on Friday said the arrested trio and their associates were shown videos pertaining to alleged atrocities against Muslims in Indian-administered-Kashmir, Muzaffarnagar and Iraq to induct them into the outfit and execute terror strikes in the national capital.
Investigators had earlier claimed that the trio was initially inspired by the dreaded IS and later shifted their ideological leaning.
Sajid was self-radicalised and propagated ideology which was in line with that of the IS until he came in touch with a cyber entity, Talha, believed to be close to Masood Azhar.
