New Delhi, Jan 18 (IANS) Delhi Police on Monday arrested a suspected Al Qaeda terrorist from Mewat in Haryana and got his custody till February 1, officials said.
Abdul Sami, a resident of Dhatkidih under Bistupur Police Station, was arrested from Nuh, the district headquarter of Mewat on the Delhi-Alwar highway, about 45 km from Gurgaon.
“We arrested Abdul Sami from Nuh today (Monday). He was produced before a district court in Delhi that sent him to police custody till February 1,” Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Arvind Deep told IANS.
Sami is the fifth terrorist to be arrested within a month in the ongoing operation by the Delhi Police Special Cell against the Al Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent (AQIS).
Delhi Police officers on January 6 arrested Maulana Anzar Shah from Bengaluru, who is in police custody till January 20, for plotting to carry out a series of terror strikes in the country.
The Special Cell had in December last year arrested three AQIS operatives — Zafar Masood, Abdul Rehman and Mohammed Asif.
Asif was the recruitment and training head of AQIS.
Special Cell chief Arvind Deep told IANS that Sami was in constant touch with Abdul Rehman who was to give him further tasks.
“As Rehman was arrested before he could give any terror assignment to Sami, we managed to stop a possible terror strike,” Deep told IANS.
The police officer said Sami had visited Mansehra in Pakistan in January 2014 via Dubai and Karachi and received special training till he arrived in India in January 2015.
According to police sources, Sami was in constant touch with AQIS commander Abdul Rahman. Sami is also believed to have been handed an important task by the AQIS commander, but was arrested before he could carry it out.
The arrest assumes significance in view of AL Qaeda�s announcement of launching a wing in the Indian subcontinent last year in September.
Earlier in 2015, the United States announced that it had destroyed what it said was the largest al-Qaeda camp detected in Afghanistan where upwards of 150 AQIS personnel were thought to have been training.
Pamphlets and videos recovered from the site threw up evidence that many of the recruits spoke Urdu and Bengali, officials said.
