A representative image of Anti-Terror Squad personnel conducting raid.
Credit: PTI Photo
Mumbai: In a major operation, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) raided the residences of a Urdu teacher in the Kurla area of Mumbai and Kausa locality of Mumbra in neighbouring Thane district for alleged links with terror outfit Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).
Investigators believe that the teacher, identified as Ibrahim Abidi, aged 64, may have been influencing children towards extremist ideologies.
Abidi stayed in Mumbra with his second wife and taught Urdu in a mosque in Kurla, where he has another house in which his first wife stays.
He had been under surveillance for suspected online communication with extremist networks.
Police have seized his mobile phone and hard disks of the suspect, his wife and children.
"The police came with a search warrant in the afternoon and checked our house. They took our hard disk, our phones, and my children’s devices. The police told him to check his second house in Kurla, but nothing like that happened. We called and complained to the control room, but received no response. My children and I are disturbed,” his second wife said, adding that the ATS team has come from Pune.
These searches are reportedly linked to the ongoing investigation into the Pune AQIS case, in which a software engineer was earlier arrested for alleged links to the banned terrorist organisation.
The investigations, however, are not linked to the Red Fort terror attack.