Abdul Raqib Qureshi, the Islamic State (IS) terror module brain who was nabbed by the Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police on December 9, 2022 from Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa, was also arrested in 2009 and 2014.

Qureshi was held on December 9 last year on the basis of the interrogation of two of his subordinates in the terror module, Mohammad Saddam and Syed Ahmed, who were arrested by STF sleuths from West Bengal’s Howrah district on January 7. Qureshi is currently in police custody.

Sources from the city police pointed out that in 2009 Qureshi was arrested in an attempt to murder charge. “Again in 2014, he was arrested on charges of raising slogans in support of Taliban,” a city police official said. Before being associated with IS, Qureshi was a senior and active leader of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

Qureshi was released from jail in 2019 and after that he became active in social media to spread the IS messages to brainwash youths and rope them in the terror outfit.

City police sources said that he was supposed to meet the other IS activist Mohammad Saddam in New Delhi during the current month, but before that both got arrested. “Qureshi met Mohammad Saddam through social media and influenced him to join IS. Later Saddam brainwashed and roped in Syed Ahmed to the terror module,” a city police official said.

It is learnt that the two common factors between the arrested is that all of them are extremely tech- savvy and all of them are proficient in multiple languages, including Arabic.

While Mohammad Saddam is a qualified engineer, Syed Ahmed is a student of mechanical engineering with Aliah University. Saddam used to interact with the IS handlers in Syria and Saudi Arabia in Arabic language only.

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