In a major catch, the Pune Police have nabbed two persons allegedly linked with a terror group and wanted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), an official said here on Wednesday.

The accused duo — with a reward for their capture — were found trying to steal a motorcycle by a night patrol team of constables Amol Nazan and Pradeep Chavan of the Kothrud Police Station, around 3 a.m.

Seeing them, the police patrol accosted the duo — identified as Yunus Saki and Imran Khan, both from Ratlam city in Madhya Pradesh — when they were trying to flee with a motorcycle, said Pune Police Commissioner Retesh Kumaarr.

A third person, who was present with them, managed to escape from the spot in the dark, but when the police patrol took them to their residence for a search, even Saki and Khan attempted to flee from there, but were apprehended by Nazan and Chavan.

The police searched their home and seized a laptop, four mobiles and a live fire-round, and the probe also revealed that they carried a booty of Rs 5 lakhs on their heads, said Kumaarr.

Holed up in Pune for nearly one-and-half years, Saki and Khan are believed to be members of an extremist group ‘SUFA’, inspired by the IS and were wanted by the NIA for a terror strike conspiracy hatched in Rajasthan last year.

Earlier this week, the NIA had attached a property owned by Khan in Ratlam which was purportedly used for recruiting new cadres and coaching them on how to make bombs and IEDs.

After the initial case was lodged in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, the NIA stepped into the probe and filed its own charge sheet in Madhya Pradesh in April 2022, naming the absconders Khan-Saki, along with 10 other accused in the same case.

The arrested duo shall be handed over to the NIA after completing the due process for further investigations, said officials.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)