Six suspects, including two Bangladeshi nationals and one each from Pakistan and Myanmar, have been arrested in Hyderabad during security checks ahead of Independence Day, police said on Friday.
The suspects were arrested from a house in the old city area on Thursday. The two other arrested are locals, including the house owner.
Police said it was yet to be established whether they were having direct links with any terrorist group. Police denied that they were planning any attacks during Independence Day celebrations.
The arrested were identified as Mohammed Nazeer (52), Faisal Mohammed alias Faisal (24), Zainul Abideen alias Mohammed Usman (30), Ziaur Rehman (18), Massod Ali Khan (55) and Suhail Parveez Khan (31).
Joint Commissioner of Police Prabhakar Rao told reporters that the accused were sending job-seekers abroad on fake documents and illegal passports. They had so far sent 15 people abroad.
"They said they were sending people for employment but we suspect that the motive is more than that because of the suspicious activities of Mohammed Nazeer," he said.
Police were trying to identify the 15 people sent abroad, most of them to Saudi Arabia.
"They may have gone for unlawful activities. They may be recruiting people for terrorist organisations. This is yet to be ascertained and confirmed," the police officer said.
Nazeer, a Bangladeshi by birth who migrated to Pakistan 30 years ago, had illegally entered India in 2010. He was allegedly in touch with Jabbar, a leader of terror group Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) in Bangladesh.
The police officer said that on the direction of Jabbar, Nazeer helped Waqas, an accused in the Dilsukhnagar bomb blasts, in crossing the border into Bangladesh in January 2014.
Waqas, an alleged operative of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), was later arrested by the National Investigation Agency.
"This points to the link between HuJI and IM," the joint commissioner said.
At least 16 people were killed in the twin blasts in Dilsukhnagar area of Hyderabad on February 22, 2013.
Police seized four Indian passports, one Bangladeshi passport, nine cell phones, SIM cards and about 100 voter identity and Aadhaar cards collected from various people to obtain passports.
Ever since he entered India in 2010, Nazeer was allegedly helping people especially those from Bangladesh and Myanmar in getting illegal passports.
The Pakistani national lived in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana before coming to Hyderabad in March this year.
Police said the details of Nazeer's activities and the motive behind sending people abroad would be known after thorough interrogation of the accused.
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