Kolkata, Nov 19 () The special task force (STF) of Kolkata Police has approached a lower court here seeking direction to Facebook authorities for the recovery of deleted data from the social media account of a suspected operative of AQIS (Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent), who is currently in police custody.
City police sources said that on November 7, the STF had arrested Azizul Haque, a teacher by profession, and Maniruddin Khan, a student, both from Mathurapur in South 24 Parganas district, for their alleged links with AQIS.
During integration, Maniruddin Khan admitted that he used to undertake two kinds of assignments on behalf of AQIS. The first assignment was related to brainwashing local youth to become members of AQIS, and the second was to create fake documents for the newly recruited ones to send them for training. The target of Azizul Haque and Maniruddin Khan was to set up a fresh terror module of AQIS in the Mathurapur area.
Sources said that for the first assignment, Maniruddin Khan extensively used his Facebook account to send and share Jihad related literature and videos to the targeted youth.
However, while cross-checking, the police found that many of these crucial Facebook content have been permanently deleted and hence they approached a lower court in Kolkata for assistance from Facebook authorities in recovering these data.
An officer said that recovery of these deleted data is extremely important for the STF on two counts. First, to make the case stronger against Maniruddin. Second, to have a clear idea of the youth whom Maniruddin had targeted for brainwashing and how many of them have replied positively to his call for Jihad.
During the last four months, the STF sleuths have arrested eight AQIS operatives from different pockets of West Bengal, which include the last two arrests of Azizul Haque and Maniruddin Khan.
The series of the arrests of AQIS operatives started on August 17, when the STF sleuths arrested two AQIS linkmen, Raqib Sarkar and Kazi Ahshanullah, from North 24 Parganas district.
Sarkar is a resident of Ganganagar in South 24 Parganas district, while Kazi Ahshanullah hails from Arambagh in Hooghly district. The latter owns a house in the Topsia area of Kolkata.
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