ATS gets custody of JeM terrorist who conducted recce of RSS headquarters

An officer said that Raees Shaikh (26) had allegedly conducted a partial recce of Hedgewar Smriti Bhavan in Nagpur’s Reshimbaug area and sent a video of the same to his handler in Pakistan. Sheikh is a resident of Awantipora town in J&K’s Pulwama district. He was arrested by the J&K Police last December after a grenade was found on him.

During interrogation, he had told the police about the recce of the RSS headquarters. Following this, the Nagpur Police was contacted and it registered an FIR. A team from the Nagpur Police went on to visit Kashmir to question Shaikh.

Eventually, the case was transferred to the Maharashtra ATS. On Monday, the Nagpur unit of the ATS got a production warrant from the J&K Police and took Shaikh’s custody.

The officer said that during his interrogation by the ATS in the last two days, Sheikh had said that a person named Omar, allegedly the operational commander of JeM’s Nawabpur cell, was his handler.

Shaikh claimed that he had come to Nagpur on July 13, 2021, and checked into a hotel in Sitabuldi. The handler had assured Sheikh that a local resident would contact him. However, since no one contacted him, Shaikh conducted the recce himself, the officer added. “He took a few videos and sent it to his handler. The handler was, however, unhappy since they were of poor quality. Shaikh says he informed his handler that there was heavy security in the area and he aborted the mission, returning to Srinagar on July 15 via a Nagpur-Delhi-Srinagar flight.” the officer said.