Alleged ISI agent held in Hyderabad

The Central Zone Task Force on Sunday arrested an alleged ISI agent aiding Andhra Pradesh's most wanted terrorist Mohammed Abdul Shahed alias Bilal to recruit youth from Hyderabad.

On specific intelligence inputs, Task Force personnel picked up Maqsood Ahmed alias Maqsood, 26, at a bus stand on the high-security Raj Bhavan Road.

He was working as a manager in a garments showroom at Somajiguda. The police recovered four CDs and a floppy containing provocative speeches from his possession.

Task Force Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) V B Kamal Hasan Reddy said that Maqsood, a resident of Malakpet, had become an active member of the old city-based fundamentalist outfit Darsgah-Jihad-O-Shahadat, which imparts unarmed combat training.

He was arrested in 2001, along with DJS founder-president Shaik Mahboob Ali, for watching and circulating provocative videos depicting the demolition of Babri Masjid. He spent 27 days in jail.

Between 1999 and 2004, Maqsood remained in constant touch with Mahboob Ali and took part in various programmes organised by the outfit.

In 2004, through his friend and Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative, Mohammed Ibrahim, he came into contact with Mohammed Abdul Shahed alias Bilal, a native of Hyderabad and an active ISI agent operating from Bangladesh and Pakistan. 

Shahed, who works for Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Tayiba, had masterminded the blast at City Police Task Force office in Begumpet in October 2005.

In July 2006, Maqsood traveled to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of Bilal. There, he was 'initiated into jihad' and
entrusted with the task of recruiting Muslim youths to wage a war against India and to take up "jihadi' activities in Iraq and Somalia.

He was given CDs containing provocative speeches and money to carry out operations.

Maqsood returned to the city in August 2006 and since then, he has been trying to convince Muslim youth to take up Jihad in Hyderabad and Gujarat.

He was in regular contact with Bilal and was not tasked with carrying out explosions or violence. He was planning to form jihadi cells in the city. He had also taken Rs 3.5 lakh as loans from various banks and planned to fly to Dubai after recruiting the youth. 

Meanwhile, city police intensified frisking of individuals and checking of vehicles in the twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad following an Intelligence Bureau report that three Bangladeshi terrorists had either sneaked into the city or were trying to do so. Security has been tightened at vital installations, including railway stations and bus stations.