The arrested Islamic State suicide bomber who intended to attack India’s governing elite for “insult to Prophet” has been granted access by the Indian security agencies after they requested it from their Russian colleagues, the FSB.
Mashrabkon Azamov, an Uzbek national, was seized by the Russian Federal Security Service for attempting to attack India after being recruited by one Yusuf Tajiki through Islamic radicalization in April 2022 to join the ultra-conservative Sunni terrorist outfit, Islamic State. He landed in Russia to travel to India after receiving specialised suicide bomber training in Turkey, a haven for Islamic extremists, according to his confession. “Some persons” in India were supposed to supply the logistics and explosives for the targeted attack.
According to information obtained by HT, allied intelligence agencies alerted their Indian counterparts in June 2022 that radical Islamists were on the rise and seeking retaliation for the Prophet Muhammad’s blasphemy. The suicide bomber picked the Moscow route to evade intensive scrutiny because India has intensified the visa screening from specific countries including Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait, and Central Asian Republics.
The Indian agencies are in contact with their Uzbek and Russian counterparts to investigate the potential of turning over Azamov to them for targeted questioning over the Indian end of the plan. The local module that was sent to assist Azamov must be located by Indian agencies in order to reveal the entire scope of the plan.
“Starting point of a formal or informal probe can be questioning those who were earlier arrested for being associated with ISIS to figure out if there is a new sleeper cell or module which was assisting this Uzbek national,” the source said.
