Twelve of the 16 Naxalites killed in an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Gariaband district have been identified as dreaded ultras carrying a cumulative bounty of Rs 3.13 crore, including a central committee member of the outlawed movement, a police official said. Among them was Chalpathi alias Jairam, a member of the central committee and Odisha state committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), who had a collective bounty of Rs 90 lakh on his head in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. It was the first time someone from the central committee, the main governing body of the proscribed outfit, has been eliminated in an encounter in Chhattisgarh. The encounter, which lasted three days, involved personnel from E-30 (a Gariaband district police unit), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), its elite unit CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) and Odisha police's Special Operation Group (SOG).
In one of the deadliest blows to Naxalites in Chhattisgarh, security forces on Sunday gunned down 31 rebels, including 11 women, in a fierce encounter in the state's Bijapur district, police said.
One terrorist was killed on Monday as special forces were mobilised to neutralise a group of recently infiltrated ultras who attacked an army convoy in a village in the Akhnoor sector near Jammu, officials said.
The incident took place on Wednesday night in Tarrem area when a joint team of security personnel was returning after an anti-Maoist operation in forests on the tri-junction of Bijapur-Sukma-Dantewada districts, a police official said in Bijapur.
The Maoist blast took place around 3 pm near Timmapuram village between Silger and Tekalgudem camps of security forces, over 400 km from the state capital Raipur.
He said the investigators are verifying the suspect's identity and are 'getting closer to him.'
The NIA had arrested Mussavir Hussain Shazib and Adbul Matheen Ahmed Taahaa from Kolkata for their alleged role in March 1 blast at Rameshwaram Cafe here, which left 10 people injured.
At least nine people were injured when a blast took place at Rameshwaram Cafe in Brookfield in East Bengaluru on March 1.
Asked whether it was a terrorist act, the CM said, it is not known and investigations are on.
Eight District Reserve Guards (DRG) jawans and a civilian driver were killed in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district when Naxals detonated an improvised explosive device targeting their vehicle. The incident occurred near Ambeli village while the security personnel were returning from an anti-Naxalite operation. This is the biggest Naxal attack on security forces in the region in the past two years.
A purported Telegram post circulated on social media, which claimed that the blast was carried out in retaliation to the "targeting" of pro-Khalistan separatists allegedly by Indian agents.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, he said no one has suffered serious injuries and the injured -- both staff and customers -- are being treated in hospital.
It said two of the key accused were Islamic State of Iraq and Syria radicals, who used fraudulently obtained "Indian SIM cards and Indian bank accounts" besides "various Indian and Bangladeshi Identity documents downloaded from the dark web (which is accessible only through specialised browsers) in carrying out their nefarious activities.
Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on Thursday said sleuths investigating into the blast at Bengaluru's popular eatery 'The Rameshwaram Cafe' last week have got certain 'good leads', as the prime suspect changed his clothes after the incident, and travelled by a bus.
On September 29, 2008, a bomb explosion at 9:35pm opposite Shakil Goods Transport Company situated between Anjuman Chowk and Bhiku Chowk in Malegaon killed six persons and injured 101.
The security forces had received inputs about the presence of cadres belonging to company no. 5 of Maoists in Bhomra, Hurtarai and Michchebeda villages, he said.
Naseer and his associates had conspired to wage war against the government of India and also to kill Indians in order to destabilise the country and create communal disharmony, it said.
The patrol team first found 13 pressure IEDs and later recovered 149 such bombs, weighing about one kilogram each, from a nearby cave in the area.
According to official sources, images of the suspect's movement have been captured by the CCTV cameras at the Rameshwaram cafe in Brookefield area and those nearby.
Police sources said that four persons have been detained for questioning in connection with Friday's low-intensity bomb blast at The Rameshwaram Cafe.
The National Investigation Agency on Friday filed a fresh charge sheet against five persons in connection with the Coimbatore car bomb blast in October 2022, and said the prime accused was "reportedly inspired by the hardcore ISIS ideology" to carry out this terrorist attack.
The arrested person was identified as Mohammad Shahnawaz Alam, a resident of Hazaribagh area of Jharkhand.
In a separate incident, a commando of the Central Reserve Police Force's jungle warfare unit CoBRA was injured when a pressure improvised explosive device (IED), planted by Naxalites went off in the district, police said.
Police suspect that one of the persons who visited the blast site at the Prithviraj Road two hours prior to the incident had come from Jamia Nagar in southeast Delhi.
A 10-year-old boy was killed when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted by CPI-Maoists in Jharkhand's West Singbhum district exploded, a senior police officer said on Friday.
A low intensity bomb blast at a popular eatery in Bengaluru on Friday left 10 people injured, leading the police to invoke the stringent UAPA provisions in the case. Subsequently, the police were looking into all angles related to the incident.
The National Security Guard has informed the Delhi police that the IED recovered recently from the Ghazipur flower market had a timer device attached to it and had ammonium nitrate and RDX as its components, official sources said on Monday.
A special National Investigation Agency court in Patna on Friday convicted eight operatives of the Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh terror group for planting IEDs at the Mahabodhi temple complex in Bodh Gaya in 2018, an official said.
NIA's sleuths carried out these searches at 21 locations in Coimbatore, three in Chennai, and one location in Tenkasi -- all in Tamil Nadu.
The incident occurred on Monday night when the victim, Mohammad Razaq (40), came out of a mosque in his village Kunda Top under the Thanamandi police station area. Razaq's brother, Mohammad Tahir Choudhary, is a soldier in the Territorial Army, police said.
The early morning crackdown against the terror group in Ballari and Bengaluru in Karnataka, Amaravati, Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra, Jamshedpur and Bokaro in Jharkhand and Delhi, led to the foiling of a plan by the accused to carry out terror acts, especially improvised explosive device blasts.
The final report against a juvenile who was also apprehended in the case will be submitted to the Juvenile Justice Board in Rajouri, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.
Among the distressed crowd at the venue were senior citizens, including women who had actively participated in the morning prayers.
The accused identified as Mohd Mustaqeem, originally from Balarampur, Uttar Pradesh, was also in touch with the IS entities of Kashmir, added sources.
In the first phase covering 20 of the total 90 assembly seats, 223 candidates, including 25 women, are in the fray and as per electoral rolls, 40,78,681 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.
The infiltration bid was scuttled in Balakot sector on Saturday evening and a massive search operation is still underway, the spokesman said.
The raids were carried out in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and the Union Territory of Chandigarh by the NIA as part of a mega operation that began early Thursday morning, a spokesperson of the premier investigating agency said.
They were motivating impressionable Muslim youths to relocate from their place of residence for strengthening the Padgha base, the spokesperson said.
While two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists were killed in Shopian district, two Ansar Gazwat-ul-Hind ultras were gunned down in Pulwama district in south Kashmir.
Mussavir Hussain Shazib and Adbul Matheen Ahmed Taahaa were traced to their hideout near Kolkata and apprehended by an NIA team, they said.