The series of arrests of suspects in terror cases also seems to have exposed that the Karnataka police “failed” to keep track of two techies who were deported from Turkey after being caught trying to cross over to Syria in January 2015.
The two have now gone untraceable and the failure to keep track of them is not only an embarrassment to the State police but has also raised concerns that State agencies are not “on the ball” in tracking terror suspects, according to sources in the Intelligence Bureau. Both were part of a group of nine people, including five children, that was deported from Turkey. The alleged “leader” of the group Mohammed Abdul Ahad, who had taken his five children and wife in the attempt to cross the Syrian border allegedly to fight for the IS, has now been arrested.
But there are fears that one of the two techies who the State police failed to keep track of could have fled from India. This is despite Central agencies asking the State police to keep track of the entire group after the Central Crime Branch (CCB) questioned them in January. The family of one of the two missing techies, Noufal, said he was in Saudi Arabia, but do not have the documentation to support it, said an NIA official.
Earlier this month, the city police were left stumped when the Delhi Police Special Cell arrested radical cleric Moulana Anzar Shah Qasmi fore his alleged links with Al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). Qazmi, with whom all the arrested suspects were in touch, was under the city police surveillance for nearly three months, but the surveillance inputs were not shared with other agencies and they failed to investigate him thoroughly. Ironically, the now arrested group allegedly distanced itself from Qazmi because he supported AQIS and not the IS.
A thorough probe by the city police earlier could have helped uncovered both, a senior Central Intelligence official said. However, the State police alleged that while they are diligently working on the inputs they have, the Central agencies were not sharing information seamlessly crippling them from seeing the larger picture.
