THE group of youths arrested in Uttar Pradesh earlier this month in connection with a blast on a Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train, were interacting with a handler operating under the identity of “Stranger” on messaging platform Telegram, investigations have revealed. On March 7, after planting the improved explosive device (IED) on the train, the group, allegedly “inspired” by the Islamic State (IS), reportedly provided an image of the IED — placed on a rack, where it exploded — to the handler’s Telegram account. They later uploaded news of the blast to “Stranger’’, the probe has found. Investigation into the group began after their arrest following the train blast, and the subsequent death of one group member, Saifullah Khan, 23, in Lucknow during a long-drawn police siege on his rented house. Sources said investigators found that a person named Abu Hisham was operating the handle “Stranger’’ on Telegram, an encrypted messaging service, to communicate with the group, especially its leader, Atif Muzaffar, 22. The true identity of Abu Hisham has not been established yet, sources familiar with the probe said. Three members of the group — Atif, Saifullah and Faizal Khan, 23 — had allegedly killed a retired school principal named Ramesh Shukla, 62, in Kanpur on October 23, 2016. The group reportedly sent images of this killing to the handler on Telegram. The arrested suspects have claimed that they killed Shukla to test two pistols Atif had procured through local contacts. Atif allegedly got the money to buy the pistols after selling a property he owned in Kanpur. It is not clear how the UP group came in contact with the handler on Telegram, and investigators are still looking into whether it was a chance online encounter or whether they were guided specifically to “Stranger”. According to accounts provided to the police by one of the accused, Ghouse Mohammed Khan, 55, a retired IAF official, who was a mentor to the group, Atif came to him with two pistols shortly after a meeting of the group organised at Atif’s Kanpur house in September 2016. Ghouse claims to have told Atif that only one pistol was in good condition. A unit of Telangana police got wind of the UP group and its members’ alleged pro-IS slant from their online activities and began monitoring them. But the police unit was not aware of the extent the group had gone in procuring arms and explosives. “They (suspects) might have felt that time was not ripe for an intervention,’’ said police sources aware of the operation that led to the arrest of Atif and eight others after the March 7 train blast. According to sources, the group is closest in similarity to an IS-linked group dismantled in June 2016 in Hyderabad. In the latter, nine people were allegedly interacting with a handler, who was proficient in Hindi but is yet to be definitively identified. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) busted this Hyderabad group, led by brothers Ibrahim Yazdani, 29, and Illyas Yazdani, 24, after they procured guns, ammunition and explosives in Nanded (Maharashtra) and Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh), allegedly guided by an unidentified remote handler.
