Maharashtra ATS arrests man from Ratnagiri for providing financial help to two terror suspects

The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested a man from Ratnagiri district for providing financial aid to two terror suspects, who were taken into custody by the Pune police on July 18, taking the number of arrests in the case to four. According to a press release issued by the ATS on Saturday, the person from Ratnagiri was earlier detained. However, he was arrested on Friday after a probe showed his involvement in the case. The man provided financial help to the two terror suspects who were arrested by the Kothrud police in Pune, said the release. The ATS has not disclosed the identity of the person.

The ATS said a team that went to another state to investigate the case has issued a notice to a suspect asking the person to appear before it for inquiry.

The agency on Wednesday arrested a man named Abdul Qadir Dastgir Pathan in Pune for providing shelter to the terror suspects – Mohammad Imran Mohammad Yunus Khan (23) and Mohammad Yunus Mohammad Yakub Saki (24).

The ATS, which recently took over the probe from Pune police, said that it recovered black “explosive” powder, laptops, parts of drones and books written in Arabic, among other things from Khan and Saki, in addition to a tent that they had allegedly procured to stay in forest areas in Pune’s adjoining districts.

Khan and Saki, wanted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for their alleged involvement in a terror-related case in Rajasthan, were nabbed from the Kothrud area of Pune city on July 18. Khan, Saki and Qadir have been remanded in police custody till August 5.

The two arrested terror suspects hail from Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh and are graphic designers. Both carried a bounty of Rs 5 lakh each, the police said.

They fled Ratlam after learning that their names had cropped up in an investigation into a terror case in which some suspected members of the Al-Sufa outfit were apprehended by the Rajasthan police from the MP town, the police said.

They reached Mumbai, where they stayed in the Bhendi Bazaar area for two to three days and then came to Pune’s Kondhwa area. The duo took up jobs with the help of a local resident, sources had said earlier. They befriended a third person, a resident of Jharkhand, who managed to escape when the police nabbed the duo, police said.

In Kondhwa, the two happened to meet Qadir and told him that they had come to Pune in search of jobs as their financial condition was weak, the sources said.

Qadir, who himself was involved in graphic designing work, provided them jobs and sublet the place he had taken on rent, they said.