After ‘terror recce’, security tightened at Mumbai's Chabad House

Mumbai, July 29 (IANS) In the wake of a ‘terror recce’ of the Chabad House in Colaba, the Mumbai Police have beefed up security at this Jewish community centre which was targeted during the 26/11, 2008 terror strikes.

The action follows the Pune Police nabbing two terror suspects of Rajasthan from Pune when they were caught stealing motorcycles 10 days ago.

They were identified as Mohammed Yunus Khan, 23 and Yunus Yakub Saki, 24, both hailing from Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh, and carrying a reward of Rs 500,000 on their heads.

After an initial case was lodged against them in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) entered the probe and filed its chargesheet against them in MP in April 2022, naming Khan-Sakhi and 10 others as accused in the matter.

The Pune Police subsequently handed them over to the NIA which revealed that they were the wanted absconders with suspected links to an extremist group Al-Sufa and had been holed up in Pune for over a year in a rented location.

Later, the Pune Anti Terrorism Squad nabbed two more suspects including Abdul Qadir and one more associate apprehended from Ratnagiri on Saturday, both said to be linked with the Khan-Saki duo arrested earlier.

Further interrogation and investigations have revealed a map and images of Chabad House and other locations of Mumbai where they reportedly carried out ‘surveillance’, besides seizing laptops, computers, pen-drives, hard disks and mobiles from them.

They were produced before a Special Court and are currently in police custody till August 5, while further probe is going on into their local Pune contacts or associates, the sources of their fundings, the motives for their stay here, the modules of the Al-Sufa network that may be active in different parts of the state, and related angles.