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The apprehended suspect Zulfikar Ali Barodawala, according to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), is the "mastermind" who was supporting and directing the other terror suspects.
The ATS brought Barodawala before Additional Sessions Judge VR Kachare a day after his detention on Tuesday, and the judge ordered him custody till August 11.
Barodawala, an IT engineer by training, was employed by a Mumbai-based company with a Pune office. The technician was allegedly living in Pune for the past few years until the National Investigation Agency (NIA) detained him on July 3 for allegedly having connections to ISIS' Maharashtra module.
The ATS demanded custody of Barodawala on Tuesday and informed the Mumbai Sessions Court that they have proven substantial ties between him and the arrest of two suspected terrorists in Pune. Barodawala was detained at Mumbai's Arthur Road jail while the NIA investigated a case involving an ISIS module.
"The ATS has informed the court that the agency suspects Barodawala was the mastermind behind the terror plot planned by the other arrested suspects," Public Prosecutor Vijay Fargade said. The central agency has made call conversations between the accused suspects available while requesting detention.
Fargade claims that the ATS wants to look into whose orders Barodawala was acting under for the operation.
According to an ATS officer who asked to remain anonymous, the investigation has so far shown a money trail between Barodawala and the two suspects Kadir Dastagir Pathan and SN Kazi, who subsequently transferred the funds to the other two suspects Mohammad Imran Mohammad Yunus Khan and Mohammad Yunus Mohammad Yakub Saki.
This demonstrates how Barodawala participated in funding terrorism, the prosecution told the jury.
The ATS also believed that Barodawala had been tasked with forming a sleeper cell and had recruited four individuals "to carry out a terror plot" as part of that task. The ATS asked the court for Barodawala's custody so they could look into his operation and the other people he had hired from Maharashtra.
The Kothrud police detained Khan and Saki on July 17, two Sufa members who were motivated by ISIS. They were involved in a bike theft investigation. The cops discovered during the investigation that the pair was on the NIA list and was wanted for 5 lakh apiece.
The NIA arrested four suspects for supporting terrorist acts on July 3, breaking up an ISIS network operating out of Maharashtra. The accused were named as Sharjeel Shaikh and Zulfikar Ali Barodawala from Padgha Thane, Tanish Nasser Siddiqui and Zubair Noor Mohammed Shaikh alias Abu Nusaiba from Kondhwa, and Zubair Noor Mohammed Shaikh from Nagpada Mumbai.
