, who were arrested in the second week of December, has allegedly revealed the plan to execute drone bombing at 40 places simultaneously in Mumbai in the month of January.){kind=link}
These alleged terrorist attacks were likely to coincide with the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
In what has set off alarm bells across agencies dealing with maintaining the security apparatus in the country, the interrogation of the highly radicalised members working under the flag of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), who were arrested in the second week of December, has allegedly revealed the plan to execute drone bombing at 40 places simultaneously in Mumbai in the month of January.
These alleged terrorist attacks were likely to coincide with the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Sources told The Sunday Guardian that the targets that included prominent offices and popular places were already identified by the accused who are now in the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
If this alleged plan had been executed, then it would have been the first instance of unmanned aerial vehicles being used in India as a tool to target citizens with the intention to spread terror. To be sure, drones have been used by Pakistan-based terror groups and criminals to drop drugs and other banned material into India and in a few instances, they have also been used to target military installations.
It is pertinent to mention that the Hamas had used the same method on 7 October to wreak havoc on the Israeli defence system. Using commercial drones, the Hamas dropped explosives on the security observation towers, disrupting Israel’s sensors, communications, and weapons systems.
Maharashtra-based sources aware of the development told The Sunday Guardian that one of the 15 accused arrested in the case by the NIA on 9 December, has voluntarily disclosed this terror plot to the investigators, which has now been made a part of the court documents and is likely to be added in the charge-sheet that will be filed by the NIA in the case in the coming months.
However, these allegations have been denied by lawyer Tahera Qureshi who is representing some of the accused in the case.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian from Mumbai, Qureshi said that there was no mention of the “40 places being targeted by drones” in either the First Information Report (FIR) or the remand report that has been filed by the NIA in the case. “We are going to take legal action against the journalist/s who has/have spread this false news,” she said.
Among those who were arrested by the NIA on 9 December are Mohd. Saquib Abdul Hamid Nachan @ Raveesh @ Saquib @ Khalid, Hasib Zuber Mulla @ Haseeb Zubair Mulla, Kashif Abdul Sattar Balere, Saif Ateeque Nachan, Rehan Ashfaque Suse, Shagaf Safiq Divkar, Firoz Dastagir Kuwari, Adil Iliyas Khot, Musab Haseeb Mulla, Rafil Abdul Latif Nachan, Yahya Ravish Khot, Razil Abdul Latif Nachan, Farhan Ansar Suse, Mukhlis Maqbool Nachan and Munzir Abubakar Kunnath Padikkal.
The alleged members of the ISIS were identified and arrested on the basis of the simultaneous raids that were carried out by NIA on 44 different locations in Padgha-Borivali, Thane, Mira Road and Pune in Maharashtra and Bengaluru in Karnataka.
Sources aware of the investigation further claimed that the accused were working to turn these 40 drones, some of which were already procured online or offline, and some of which were to be procured in the near future, into flying bombs by attaching improvised explosive devices to these drones, which they would have flown into the identified targets, mostly crowded places.
These 40 drones were to be flown at the same time by 40 different individuals, so as to cause maximum damage and panic and give no time to the security agencies to think of measures to prevent such attacks which would not have been the case if these drone bombs were flown at an interval.
All the arrested members, as per the NIA’s claims, were operating from Padgha-Borivali (around 55 km from Mumbai) and had self-declared the village of Padgha in rural Thane as a “liberated zone” and as “Al Sham”—an Arabic term for the Greater Syria region, that is called in English “the Levant”.
Official sources have further claimed that they were motivating impressionable Muslim youth to relocate to Padgha from different places to strengthen the “liberated” zone.
This was being done on the lines of what ISIS, under its slain leader Abu bakr al-Baghdadi, had started doing by establishing its control in parts of Iraq-Syria in mid-2014 and inviting radicals from across the world to arrive in these areas to establish a “caliphate”. By the end of 2015, the group was ruling over an area that had 12 million people and had at least 30,000 terrorists under its command.
Saqib Nachan, the main accused and the leader and head of this Maharashtra ISIS module, was also administering the “bayath” (oath of allegiance to the Khalifa of ISIS) to the persons joining them. His son, Shamil Nachan, 31, was arrested in August this year, along with 5 others, for their alleged involvement in the same module.
As per the claims made by the security agencies, Shamil and the other accused were operating from a house in Kondhwa, Pune, where they had assembled IEDs and also organised and participated in a bomb training and bomb-making workshop in 2022 and had carried out a controlled explosion at this location to test IEDs fabricated by them, that were to be fitted on these drones.
The dangers posed by commonly available drones have been a subject of deliberations for at least five to six years now. In February 2018, FBI director Christopher Wray had told a US Senate committee that drones could be used in a terrorist attack in the U.S.
Drones that can fly with one kilogram weight are available online and offline in India for less than Rs 5,000 and can fly easily at a height of 150 feet, which is the height of a 15-stories residential or commercial property.
A drone fitted with 1 kg of IED can cause a substantial loss of lives if exploded over a crowded area and it is virtually impossible for the security agencies to keep an eye on every such crowded place and even if they spot a flying drone they will not have enough time to respond to the danger posed by it.