How police arrested wanted ‘handler’ of 4 ISIS terrorists nabbed in India

Sri Lanka Police on Friday arrested the alleged ‘handler’ of four Sri Lankan suspected ISIS terrorists, who were taken into custody in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad Airport.

The 46-year-old suspect, Osman Pushparaja Gerard, was arrested following a joint operation by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) in Colombo.

After the arrests of four suspects by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) for having links with terrorist outfit ISIS, Sri Lanka launched a high-level investigation with the participation of two main intelligence branches of the police, the CID and the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) and other military intelligence services.

In the hunt for Osman or the coordinator of four ISIS suspects, earlier Sri Lanka Police offered a cash reward of Rs. 02 million to any informant.

However, he was subsequently arrested last night (May 31) based on information received that the suspect was in hiding in Colombo. 

It was in a joint operation carried out by the Terrorist Investigation Division and the Criminal Investigation Department under the direct supervision of the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) in charge of the CID Rohan Premaratne.

Police said that the suspect is currently being detained and questioned.

Sri Lanka Police had so far arrested six suspects, including the handler who was linked with the four arrested in India.

Among those others arrested in Sri Lanka are: a suspect who had prepared a flag with an ISIS logo before which the suspects had taken an oath, two other oath takers who originally planned to go to India but later refused (making two newcomers to join the four arrested at Ahmadabad) and another suspect who handled the financial transactions.

On May 19, the ATS had arrested four terror suspects who had arrived on an Indigo flight from Colombo to Chennai.

Among the arrested individuals, Mohammed Nusrat, 35, who was involved in selling imported telecommunication devices and electrical equipment from Singapore, Malaysia, and Dubai had a criminal history.

In September 2020 he had been arrested in Colombo for keeping heroin in his possession while the other suspect 27-year-old Mohammad Nafran, had been running a business of importing clothing material and chocolates from India and Dubai.

In 2017, Nafran was arrested by the Sri Lanka Police under the National Gem and Jewellery Authority Act.

He was also the son of Mohamed Niyas Naufer alias ‘Potta Naufer’, a notorious underworld drug-lord who was sentenced to death for the killing of a High Court judge in Colombo.

The other two suspects are Mohammad Faris, 35, and Mohammad Rashdeen, 43, both from Colombo who had made their first visit to India.

--With Agencies Inputs