NEW DELHI: At first glance, “Rockkman” was engaging in a seemingly innocuous conversation with “Caveman” on Telegram. The chats between the two accounts primarily revolved around inquiring about each other’s well-being and frequently discussed the prospects of a meeting. However, there was an intriguing twist. Rockkman was based in Pakistan, while the other was in India.While the former remained relatively stationary, the latter was traversing from one state to another.
Similar movements were exhibited by two other accounts. One bore the name “Qasem Solemani,” and the other had a few letters in Urdu followed by the digits 123.
By tracing such electronic leads and corroborating them with human intelligence networks, law enforcement officials managed to apprehend Rizwan Ali, an “IED expert” who had led multiple agencies on a wild goose chase for a year.
With a diploma in “fire safety and management” and brief employment at a company engaged in the trade of firefighting equipment, Rizwan could have pursued a more prosperous and peaceful life. However, he allegedly opted to utilise his skills in IED assembly and found himself on the most wanted list of various agencies.
Rizwan collaborated with Shanawaz (arrested last year), and the duo honed their expertise in preparing “elbow IEDs” through instructions provided to them on Telegram, according to a police report. These L-shaped IEDs were not the culmination of their scheme, as per police allegations. To amplify the impact, they were experimenting with small, 3kg LPG cylinders, which would shatter during an explosion and propel lethal shrapnel. Interestingly, the suspects were incorporating black pepper as a unique ingredient in their IED mixture (codenamed Mehndi).
The initial IED testing location was the Yamuna floodplain near Zakir Nagar in southeast Delhi. Their mobile devices contained numerous photographs of them assembling IED and PDF files detailing bomb-making instructions.
“They fabricated a bomb using components procured from the local market and assembled the elbow IEDs at the residence of a suspect named Rizwan at Pahalwan Chowk, Batla House. Following the failure of the Yamuna Bank IED to detonate effectively, they refined the IED by modifying the temperature and concentration of chemicals and ventured to Haldwani and Nuh for further testing,” the report states.
The IED tested in Haldwani was a larger elbow IED (3-inch diameter) and was detonated in a jungle near Lal Kuan to ensure that the explosion would not be audible to locals. “The accused celebrated and returned to Delhi. They revisited Nuh in the Mewat region, where they attached a cylinder to IED and set the timer for five minutes. This attempt was also successful,” the document further elaborates.
Sources revealed that Rizwan had been in contact with foreign handlers for several years. His initial contact was with an online entity known as “Abu Huzaifa al Bakistani,” who had been handling close to two dozen youths through various online platforms. This entity was recruiting and radicalising youth across Southeast Asia to join “Islamic State.” “This handle became active after the online ID ‘Yusuf Al Hindi’ abruptly went dormant. Shafi Armar from Indian Mujahideen, who later joined the Khorasan module of Islamic State, was operating that handle and recruiting Indian youth,” an officer recalled.
Rizwan, along with Shahnawaj, was also communicating with a mysterious woman from the Maldives and even donated to the globally recognised al Hawl camp, an ISIS detention centre on the Syria-Iraq border. The module members were also communicating through draft messages on cloud-based services, akin to trained spies. “The module members had a ‘shared ID and its password’ to log into a single account,” a source said.