A 40-year-old man, who spent seven years in a jail in France for allegedly keeping links with terror organisations and recruiting two French citizens for training in Pakistan, was deported to India last week.
A joint team of officials of the Intelligence Bureau and Delhi Police interrogated Mohammad Rasheed, a native of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, and later handed him over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). An NIA official said Rasheed has now been handed over to Tamil Nadu police for further probe.
‘Rasheed is suspected to have contacted Indians and helped them reach France and some countries in the Middle East,’ a source at the airport.
The agencies are now in search for a suspected money trail between Rasheed and his contacts in south India. Rasheed, believed to self-radicalised, was allegedly in touch with terrorists involved in the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia, in which 202 people were killed.
In 2013, he was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of criminal conspiracy for wanting to carry out a series of blasts in France through alleged links with terror outfits. HT
