Mumbai: Maharashtra ATS arrests nine Bangladeshi nationals for illegal stay

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Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested nine Bangladeshi nationals who were staying illegally in the country in separate operations across Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, an official told news agency PTI on Wednesday.

Among them, two Bangladeshi nationals were wanted in connection with a rape case registered at Navi Mumbai's Nerul police station in 2022, he said.

The operations at multiple locations and spread over a week were part of a drive against Bangladeshi nationals staying in the country without valid documents, the official told PTI.

On July 26, a raid was conducted at Nerul village in Navi Mumbai where ATS officials nabbed a Bangladeshi woman. She was wanted in a case registered by the Mumbai Crime Branch in 2009, he said.

Besides her, two men, wanted in the rape case, were also apprehended from the satellite city, the official told PTI.

The next day, ATS sleuths conducted a raid at Byculla in the metropolis and arrested four Bangladeshi nationals wanted in a case registered under the Passport Act, he said.

In another raid, two citizens of the neighbouring country were apprehended from central Mumbai, the official told PTI.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra ATS, which is probing the case related to two terror suspects arrested in Pune last month, has now taken into custody Zulfikar Ali Barodawala, whom the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had held in another case, an official told PTI.

Barodawala was taken into custody from Mumbai on Tuesday and was later produced in a Pune court, where the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). The agency told the court that he is the "mastermind" and the handler of the arrested suspects.

Barodawala was in judicial remand in connection with a case being probed by the NIA when the ATS took him into its custody. With his arrest, the number of arrests made in the Pune terror suspects case has gone up to five.

He was produced before a special court in Pune, which remanded him in police custody till August 11, public prosecutor Vijay Fargade told PTI.

While seeking his ATS custody, the prosecution told the court that as per the call data records, he was in contact with the other four terror suspects, including Mohammad Imran Mohammad Yunus Khan (23) and Mohammad Yunus Mohammad Yakub Saki (24).

Khan and Saki, both wanted by the NIA for their alleged involvement in a terror-related case in Rajasthan, were nabbed from Kothrud area in Pune on July 18 while stealing a motorcycle.

The ATS later took over the probe from the Pune police.

"Barodawala is a mastermind, who used to issue instructions and used to provide funds to the accused numbers 3 and 4 and they used to provide the same to accused number 1 and 2," said Fargade while seeking his custody in court, reported PTI.

According to ATS, accused number 3 is Qadir Dastgir Pathan, who is accused of providing shelter to Khan and Saki in Pune, while the fourth accused, arrested from Ratnagiri, whose name was not divulged by the agency, is accused of providing financial aid.

Meanwhile, sources close to the investigation said that Barodawala, with the help of Khan and Saki, had imparted training in making bombs to "some people" close to him.

The ATS has already seized chemicals and lab equipment meant for making a bomb from a place, where one of the two terror suspects arrested earlier this month, had concealed them.

The ATS earlier said that it has recovered the images of Chabad House, one of the 26/11 terror attacks sites, in south Mumbai from the electronic devices of the two terror suspects.

The NIA last month claimed to have busted an ISIS module by arresting four suspects, including Zulfikar Ali Barodawala. In the same case, the central agency had arrested Adnanali Sarkar, a noted doctor from Pune.

The suspects arrested by NIA were accused of promoting terrorist activities at the behest of ISIS, a proscribed terrorist outfit.

(With inputs from PTI)