Guwahati: It was 15 days of meticulous analysis of intelligence inputs, scouting for local links, foolproof planning, raising a solid team and no-error execution that led to the arrest of ISIS India head from Assam, a senior police officer said on Thursday.
The ISIS India head Haris Farooqi alias Harish Ajmal Farukhi and his associate Anurag Singh alias Rehan were arrested in Assam’s Dhubri district on Wednesday after they had crossed over from Bangladesh.
Addressing a press conference here, Assam Police’s Special Task Force (STF) Inspector General Parthasarathi Mahanta, who led the entire operation, said the two dreaded ISIS cadres have already been handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for further legal action. We got information from a central agency around 15 days back that there could be possible movement of top-rung ISIS leaders in certain parts of Dhubri. The input was credible and so the STF was involved,” he added. The STF then started working on probable areas of movement, trying to find local links if any and prepared a plan accordingly to arrest them, Mahanta said.
The police already had the pictures of ISIS cadres and two of them matched with the men walking on the road, the IGP said.
“We arrested them and immediately brought them to Guwahati. We handed them over to the NIA last night itself. The NIA will take them to Delhi and other places, where scores of cases are registered against the duo,” he added.