LAHORE – French counter-terrorism authorities, acting on an intelligence tip-off provided by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), have successfully smashed a terrorist network headed by an Indian national.
Well-informed sources said here on Thursday that the French Police arrested the gang leader Muhammad Niaz Abdul Rasheed, a 33-year-old Indian national from Madurai, from Charles de Gaulle Airport on May 10, this year as he returned from a recruiting trip to Algeria. Six of his accomplices were also apprehended from various French cities concurrently.
The first group comprising two French nationals, sent by the French Popular Front (FPF), was on their way to Afghanistan when Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) personnel captured them during a successful raid in January this year from Lahore.
The information passed by the Pakistani authorities resulted in the arrest of seven members of the FPF by the French intelligence, earlier this May.
According to sources, Muhammad Niaz, who lived in India till 2008, came to France by marrying a woman having French nationality, ostensibly to acquire foreign nationality.
He had been radicalised by the age of 21 primarily on account of a backlash to the oppressive treatment of Muslims in Baral Pur and joined Manitha Neethi Parasai, an offshoot of the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and predecessor of Indian Popular Front (IPF). Once in France, he planned to create a terrorist organisation, French Popular Front (FPF), on the lines of IPF model by creating a nucleus of young French jihadists to fight foreign troops in Afghanistan.
According to observers, there is a strong possibility that Muhammad Niaz, working on the behest of RAW was attempting to infiltrate Taliban or Al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan through the diversion provided by a French connection. Reportedly, Rashid admitted that he was part of a network, which is recruiting people to carry out suicide bombings in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Further investigations are underway as the top Pakistanis officials are in close touch with French authorities, the sources added.
Source The Nation
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