The father of the slain Saifullah, who is suspected as an ISIS terrorist killed by an anti-terror operation in Thakurganj at Lucknow on last Tuesday night, was refused to take his ‘traitor’ son’s body. Sartaj lives in Kanpur.
Sartaj said, “This was not in country’s interest. We will not accept the body of a traitor.”
“Two-and-a-half months ago, he left home after I beat him up for not working. He called last Monday and told us that he was going to Saudi,” he added, recounting the last conversation with his son.
One of the relatives of Saifullah, said that everybody was shocked by his actions. “He informed the media that Saifullah was well behaved and performed Namaaz 5 times a day. Such an action was not expected from him,” he added.
According to police, six pistols of different make, two wireless sets, alarm clocks, steel pipes, an IS flag, two laptops, videos of how to make bombs, four knives, two passports and 600-plus live cartridges were recovered from the site.
Intelligence agencies from two other states had tipped off the UP police of the likely presence of terror suspects in Lucknow, Kanpur and Etawah after an explosion took place in a train in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday.
For 12 hours, commandos tried to capture him alive- they used chilli grenades smoke him out of the house, organised for his brother to talk him on the phone. But Saifullah refused to surrender, telling his sibling that he was “seeking martyrdom.”
The house he was killed in was rented a few months ago from a man who works in Saudi Arabia, said sources.
He belonged to an ISIS module that was preparing to conduct a massive attack on a Sufi Shrine in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki.
The men carried out an explosion on an Ujjain bound train yesterday as a ‘practice’ for the attack on the Sufi shrine.
Following the blast, three suspects were arrested from Madhya Pradesh after they were captured in CCTV footage, and were questioned.
During the interrogation, the men revealed that they were part of a terror group consisting nine men, all from Lucknow and Kanpur, and had pledged their allegiance to ISIS.
The leader of the gang Atif Muzzaffar was among those arrested.
Further questioning revealed that the module had rented a home in Thakurganj area near Lucknow.
Based on the tip-off, the Anti-Terror Squad arrested two more men from Kanpur and trapped Saifullah, at the Thakurganj residence.
Though several Indians, mostly from the southern state of Kerala, are suspected to have joined the Islamic State in Syria, it is the first time security forces are linking a home-grown militant to the outfit, which has overran large parts of Syria and Iraq in its quest to establish a caliphate under strict Islamic laws.
