Social media, encrypted apps are ISI recruitment tools: Police

PATIALA: The busting of the terror plot in Amritsar and Patiala has made the security agencies focus on the modus operandi of foreign agencies recruiting Punjabi youth through social media. The investigators are also trying to get their hands on various encrypted apps that are being used by those trying to spread terror in the state.

Initial questioning of the Amritsar grenade attack main accused Avtar Singh has confirmed commonalities in the attack on Nirankari congregation and terror plot unearthed by the Patiala Police on November 1. Not only were weapons and methods of communication used in both cases identical, but their handlers were also the same — Dubai-based Pakistani Javed Khan and ISI-backed Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) chief Harmeet Singh Happy alias PhD.

The police top brass is now forming a joint team of senior officers from Patiala and Amritsar to probe into the two cases together. This would ensure that all aspects are investigated properly and a watertight case is made against the accused.

According to cops, grenade was not the only common link between the Nirankari Bhawan attack case in Amritsar’s Adliwal village and the arrest of Shabnamdeep Singh with a grenade and a pistol from Lahori Gate area in Patiala on November 1. During his 25-day interrogation, cops have managed to exact crucial information from Shabnamdeep Singh, which is quite similar to the one shared by Avtar, Patiala SSP M S Sidhu told TOI.

In both the terror plots, the executors were receiving instructions from Pakistan-based handlers on mobile devices that had active internet connection but disabled calling facility. They were using encrypted apps to communicate with their handler and to stay off the police radar. In both the plots, the executors were sent geospatial coordinates with pictures of the locations from where the hand grenades were to be retrieved. Cops have already got their hands on these geospatial coordinate and pictures shared with the accused.

Both Shabnamdeep and Avatar were in touch with PhD, the self- styled chief of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), which is backed by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI. They were also in touch with ISI operative Javed. PhD’s name had also figured in the challan filed by the National Investigation Agency in connection with seven targeted killings of Hindu outfit leaders in Punjab. The gangsters who broke out of the Nabha maximum security jail in November 2016 had also received help from PhD. The key conspirator in jailbreak case, Ramanjit Singh Romi, who is now waiting for his extradition to India from Hong Kong, was in touch with PhD.

While the state police have long established that the state youth with radical inclination were being spotted on social media by the ISI operative in Pakistan and Dubai, the ongoing investigations further showed that once youths fall in the trap of these foreign handler, they are provided with mobile devices in which calling through GSM is disabled. These mobiles are used to connect with ISI handlers and members through internet telephone of the group using encrypted communication channels.