Terrorists arrested from Kerala, West Bengal were plotting a Ghazwa-e-Hind

New Delhi, Sep 22: The nine persons who were arrested by the National Investigation Agency in connection with an Al-Qaeda module case were part of a chat group called Ghazwa-e-Hind.

There were 22 members on this group, investigations have revealed. However they had deleted the messages on September 19, the day when the nine persons were arrested from West Bengal and Kerala.

Ghazwa-e-Hind, when loosely translated means destruction of India. It had been propagated several years back by Ilyas Kashmiri, the head of the Al-Qaeda's 313 Brigade.

Today it is even propagated strongly by the Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Tayiba.

Interestingly, these terror groups have attributed Ghazwa-e-Hind to the Prophet. Citing the Prophet, the group tells its cadres that it had been said that the Army would rise from the west and seize India from Islam.

These groups during its various conclaves had cited this and attributed the same to the Prophet. During recent meetings of the two terror outfits, the leaders spoke about rolling out Ghazwa-e-Hind in a big way.

The first priority would be take over Kashmir, they had said. Once this is done the entire map of India can be changed. On the Kashmir issue, the commanders pointed out that Kashmiris has been fighting the Hindus even before the birth of Pakistan. Islam and Kashmir and Islam and Pakistan are not separate, they also said.

The terrorist groups, with close links with the Al-Qaida, had resolved at a conference held in Okara district in Pakistan on November 27, 2017, that it would continue its "Ghazwa-e-Hind" irrespective of the Indo-Pak ties.

Last week, the National Investigation has arrested nine terrorists of the Al-Qaeda from West Bengal and Kerala.

Raids were conducted at several locations in Ernakulam (Kerala) and Murshidabad (West Bengal) following which the terrorists of the Pakistan sponsored module of the Al-Qaeda were arrested.

The NIA had information of an inter-state module of the terror group, whose operatives were active in various locations in India, including Kerala and West Bengal. The NIA said that the group was planning on carrying out attacks in various parts of the country. They had planned on killing people and also targeting vital installations.

NIA has arrested 6 terrorists from West-Bengal and 3 terrorists from Kerala in the early morning raids conducted today, the agency had said in a statement. Large quantity of incriminating materials including digital devices, documents, jihadi literature, sharp weapons, country-made firearms, a locally fabricated body armour, articles and literature used for making home-made explosive devices have been seized from their possession.

As per preliminary investigation, these individuals were radicalised by Pakistan-based Al-Qaeda terrorists on social media and were motivated to undertake attacks at multiple places including the National Capital Region.

For this purpose, the module was actively indulging in fund raising and a few members of gang were planning to travel to New Delhi to procure arms and ammunition. These arrests have pre-empted possible terrorist attacks in various parts of the country, the NIA further said.