'Student' in Ranchi's dingy lodge turns out to be ISIS recruit, was making bombs for them

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Ashhar Danish, a 'student' who was preparing for the SSC examination in a dingy room of the Tabarak Lodge in Ranchi's Islamnagar area, was arrested after the police and Anti-Terrorism squad found out that he was actually making bombs for ISIS.

His arrest came with the arrest and interrogation of several others after the Delhi Police arrested another terrorist Aftab Qureshi - which eventually caused the police to initiate raids in other states.

According to the information furnished by Aftab and whatever was found in raids, police from Delhi and an Anti-Terrorism Squad from Jharkhand launched a joint operation to track down and arrest Danish and all the others that were arrested with him.

Sources told NDTV that a terrorist cell that was making bombs and had plans to target senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party was stopped after Danish's arrest in the case.

NDTV also reported that gunpowder and bombs and potassium nitrate in large quantities were recovered from Danish's rooms. Moreover, homemade weapons were also recovered from the room. Reports said that the bombs that were made in the room were being tested by detonating them in the waters of the Subarnarekha River.

NDTV further said that bombs of different sizes as well as intensities were found inside Danish's room. However, Danish's room, Room Number 15, was not just a bomb-making centre but was also the recruitment centre.

The NDTV report said that Danish was himself recruited and radicalised by a Pakistani handler who was operating through social media. He had moved into the lodge sometime last year and had started drifting away from people.

The recruitment and radicalisation was done through the Signal messaging application and multiple groups with vague names had been created on the app. The names were "intern interview", "business idea" - and hardly gave away the real motives behind them.

The groups were used to raise funds, which were then used to buy bomb-making materials, chemicals and knives. The report by NDTV said that the chemicals were ordered from Amazon and the handler who had recruited Danish taught him how to make explosives.

The other members of this module have been identified as Sufian Khan, Mohammad Huzaif Yaman, and Kamran Kamran Qureshi, whom reportedly had plans to attack religious sites, the NDTV report stated.