Lucknow, April 6: The Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh police picked up around one dozen persons on Wednesday and raided multiple places after interrogating Murtaza Abbasi, an accused in an attack on the Gorakhnath temple at Gorakhpur.
Official sources said the raids were carried out in Kanpur, Azamgarh, Jaunpur, Gorakhpur, Bahraich, Sambhal, Shamli and Varanasi.
“Video clips of terrorists like Abu Hamza and extremists like Zakir Naik have been found in his laptop”, the sources said. “It is being checked whether he was having any connection with terrorist groups,” an officer said.
Murtaza, a resident of Civil lines in Gorakhpur, forcibly attempted to enter the Gorakhnath temple on Sunday night. On being stopped, he attacked the security personnel with a sharp-edged weapon injuring two PAC troopers and a policeman. He was arrested and taken to Lucknow on Wednesday.
Murtaza graduated as a chemical engineer from IIT Mumbai. “After his education he was working in a company in Mumbai but lost his job due to the pandemic. It is being said that Murtaza went into depression as his wife also left him”, an officer said.
However, now the ATS suspects that Murtaza was mentally unstable — a claim made by his family.
