The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has busted yet another ISIS (aka IS i.e. Islamic Sate) terror module, this time in Maharashtra.

Four Islamic terrorists have been arrested from Mumbai, Thane, and Pune. They had trained and recruited other youth for fabrication and use of IEDs and other weapons, including distributing DIY kits for home manufacturing of weapons for jihad.

As per the NIA press release –

“The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday busted a Maharashtra based ISIS module by arresting four accused for promoting terrorist activities at the behest of ISIS, a proscribed terrorist outfit in an intelligence-led operation today.

The four were arrested after extensive raids by the NIA in Mumbai, Thane and Pune today morning. The accused have been identified as Tabish Nasser Siddiqui from Nagpada, Mumbai, Zubair Noor Mohammed Shaikh @ Abu Nusaiba from Kondhwa, Pune, and Sharjeel Shaikh and Zulfikar Ali Barodawala from Padgha, Thane.

Searches were conducted at their houses at five locations in the ISIS Maharashtra module case, registered by NIA on 28th June 2023. NIA teams seized several incriminating materials, such as electronic gadgets and several documents related to ISIS, during the searches at the houses of accused. The material seized clearly exposed the strong and active linkages of the accused with the ISIS and their efforts to motivate vulnerable youth to further the terror organisation’s anti-India agenda.

Preliminary investigations by the NIA have established that the accused had hatched a conspiracy to further the terrorist activities of ISIS, known by different names, such as Islamic State (IS)/ Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL)/Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)/Daish/ Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP)/ISIS Wilayat Khorasan/Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham Khorasan (ISISK).

The accused were trying to breach the unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of the country and preparing to wage a war against the Government of India, as part of the ISIS conspiracy, by raising and operating a Sleeper Cell in Maharashtra.

NIA raids followed credible inputs that the accused Tabish Nasser Siddiqui, Zubair Noor
Mohammed Shaikh @ Abu Nusaiba, Sharjeel Shaikh & Zulfikar Ali Barodawala and their associates had recruited youth and trained them in the fabrication of IEDs and weapons. The accused had also shared relevant material, including ‘Do it Yourself kits’ (DIY), amongst themselves for fabrication of IEDs and manufacture of small weapons, Pistols etc.

Further, on the directions of their foreign-based ISIS handlers, the accused had also created
inflammatory media content, which was published in the magazine ‘Voice of Hind, in furtherance of the banned outfit’s agenda of terror and violence.”

Earlier this month, NIA had conducted raids in Bihar (Darbhanga and Patna), Gujarat (Surat) and Uttar Pradesh (Bareilly) in connection with a ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ PFI terror module that was busted on July 14, 2022 after raids in the Phulwari Sharif area of Patna by Bihar Police. Documents about the now-banned terror group PFI’s ‘Mission 2047’ for making India an Islamic state had been recovered during the raids.

The security agencies had first arrested Athar Parvez, Arman Malik, and retired Jharkhand police officer Mohammad Jalaluddin in the Ghazwa-e-Hind case. The case was later taken over by the NIA. During questioning, the accused revealed the names of Marghoob Ahmad Danish alias Tahir, Shabbir, Nuruddin Jungi, Riyaz alias Maroof. Riyaz is considered as master trainer in the PFI terror camps organised at various places including in Phulwari Sharif, while Marghoob was running a social networking group called ‘Ghazwa-E-Hind’, and was connected with the youth of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Further, Athar Parvez was associated with banned organisation Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), and his brother Manzar Alam was involved in the 2013 serial bomb blast in the Gandhi Maidan rally of then Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Mohammad Jalaluddin also had connections with the SIMI.

In May, NIA had busted an ISIS-linked terror module in Madhya Pradesh, and arrested 3 for planning violent jihad in Bharat. In 2020, an Al-Qaeda terrorist was arrested which led to a terror module spread across West Bengal and Kerala being busted. This group too was running a WhatsApp group called ‘Gazwatul-Hind’.

What is Ghazwa-e-Hind or Gazwatul-Hind?

‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ refers to Islam’s Prophetic War against Bharat, which is based on five reported sayings (Hadees or Hadith) attributed to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad about a Muslim holy war and conquest of Bharat that shall take place before the end of times. This religious prophecy is extremely popular among large sections of Pakistan, with even educated Pakistanis like this banker-turned cleric and cricketer Shoaib Akhtar believing that the nation was created explicitly to fulfill Ghazwa-e-Hind.

The main Hadiths on Ghazwa-e-Hind unambiguously say:

“The Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) said – ‘Allah has saved two groups of my Ummah from the hellfire; the group that will invade Al-Hind (the subcontinent) and the group that will be with Eesa (Jesus), the son of Mariam.’ Quoting the narration of Abu Hurairah [the narrator of over 5,000 hadiths] – ‘The Messenger of Allah promised us the conquest of Al-Hind (the subcontinent). If I am able to join it, I will spend on it my wealth and my life. If I am killed, I will be the best of martyrs and if I return, I will be Abu Hurairah, the freed one (i.e. from hellfire).’”

The Hadiths are a primary source of guidance in Islam. It is unanimously agreed by Muslims that the authority of the Hadith is second only to that of the Quran. For obvious reasons, Islamic clerics within Bharat avoid openly discussing Ghazwa-e-Hind, while some like Maulana Mufti Salman Mansoorpuri of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, a body of Muslim clerics linked to the fundamentalist Deoband seminary which calls the Talibani terrorists of Afghanistan as ‘freedom fighters‘, have tried to deflect the issue by questioning the specific timing for its occurrence.

The unceasing busts of homegrown IS (Islamic State), Al-Qaeda, PFI and other Islamic terror modules over the last few years shows that the idea of converting Bharat into an Islamic State has a frightening number of supporters within Bharat, notwithstanding the rebuttals and denials of the left-liberal-Islamist lobby.