A teenager was among the nine men arrested for alleged terror links from Maharashtra’s Mumbra, Thane and Aurangabad on Tuesday. All of them are allegedly linked to the ISIS terror group, the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) said.
Among those arrested are Salman Khan, Fahad Shah, Zamen Kutepadi, Mohseen Khan, Mohammad Mazhar Shaikh, Taki Khan, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Zahid Shaikh and a 17-year-old (name withheld).
The arrests came during the course the ATS investigation into the presence of sleeper cells ahead of Republic Day.
On receipt of a very reliable input about a group aligned with the proscribed international terrorist organisation ISIS, ATS Maharashtra mounted watch on the suspects and gathered all relevant information about the members of the group for several weeks, ATS said.
When it was revealed that the group is likely to carry out terror acts, the ATS formed about a dozen teams and carried out searches and seizures at five different locations in Mumbra, Thane and Aurangabad simultaneously during the intervening night and early morning of 22 January.