ISIS India head Haris Farooqi and one of his key associates, Rehan, were arrested in Assam’s Dhubri district on Wednesday after they infiltrated from Bangladesh.
In a statement, Assam Police said the arrests were made from the Dharamsala area by the Special Task Force (STF) following a tip-off.
Farooqi was on the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) most-wanted list.
The STF team received credible information and a hunt was launched in an area close to the international border between India and Bangladesh. The team successfully arrested the terrorists early morning in the Dharmasala area of Dhubri after they crossed the border.
“The identity of both of them was ascertained… Haris Farooqi alias Harish Ajmal Farukhi of Chakrata, Dehradun, is the head of ISIS in India. His associate Anurag Singh alias Rehan of Panipat got converted to Islam, while his wife is a Bangladeshi national,” police said, Indian Express reported.
“Both of them are highly indoctrinated and motivated leaders/members of ISIS in India. They had furthered the cause of ISIS in India through conspiracies to carry out recruitment, terror funding and terror acts using IEDs at several places across India,” police said, adding that several cases are pending against them in Delhi, Lucknow and other places.
The Assam Police will hand over the accused to NIA.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma hailed the operation carried out by the state police. In a post on X, he said, “We shall continue our fight against the fundamentalist and eradicate terrorism from the soil of our nation under the leadership of the Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Thank you Assam Police.”
