NIA carried out several raids in different locations in Jammu and Kashmir in the pursuit of the ISIS team running the online magazine called Voice Of Hind (VOH), and also in the IED recovery case in Bathindi. The anti-terror agency conducted simultaneous searches in various districts in the Union Territory with the assistance of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Jammu and Kashmir Police.
According to reports, 16 locations were searched in the operation and three ISIS members were captured from Achabal and Anantnag. Umar Nisar, Tanveer Ahmed Bhat and Rameez Lone were the three people held in NIA custody.
Reports said that ISIS was publishing an online monthly magazine ‘Voice Of Hind’ (VOH) from February 2020. VOH was circulated through a complex network consisting of fake online entities and hiding the real identities through VPN. Investigations established links between Indian mobile numbers and those online fake accounts. NIA said that it seized a large number of digital devices such as mobile phones, hard disks, SD cards etc used in the running of the magazine.
As per sources, Umar Nisar had connections with Afghanistan based ISIS operatives and acted as a link between ISIS terrorists in India and ISIS handlers operating in the Afghan-Pak region. Nisar regularly contacted Aijaz Ahangar, an old operative of Pakistan’s ISI who hailed from Srinagar.
Umar Nisar was also responsible for motivating terrorist activities across the Jammu Kashmir region and recruiting terrorists for the ISIS/ISJK. Militants Burhan Musaib, Esa Fazli, Mugess Mir took part in Bayah which is supposedly an ‘oath of allegiance to ISIS’ event held in the jungles of Pulwama in September 2017. Nisar also had had various IDs through which he controlled the content creation and distribution of VOH.
According to reports, 70 youths were detained in Srinagar while 570 individuals were detained across the valley in the last 2-3 days. The crackdown of security forces began after the terrorist attacked civilians last week.
The raids conducted by the NIA was also a part of the probe dealing with The Resistance Front (TRF) case involving terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
