In 1st Overseas Case, NIA to Probe Terror Attack on Kabul Gurdwara

Banned terror group Islamic State Khorasan Province, an offshoot of ISIS, had claimed responsibility for the attack.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday, 1 April, registered its first overseas case and will probe the terror strike on a gurdwara in Afghanistan's capital Kabul last month that left 27 people including an Indian citizen dead.

An amendment of the NIA Act, which came into effect in August last year, has vested the agency with the power to probe terrorist activities against Indians and Indian interests abroad.

The NIA registered the case under various sections of IPC including 125 (waging war against a friendly country). Provisions of anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act were also invoked in the FIR registered by the NIA, an official spokesman said.

According to the FIR, unknown gunmen stormed into the gurdwara in Shor Bazar area of Kabul on March 25 and fired indiscriminately killing 27 devotees and injuring several others. Nearly 150 people were inside the gurdwara when the attack took place.

Tian Singh, a resident of Greater Kailash Part-1 in New Delhi, was also killed in the attack whose responsibility was claimed by banned Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), an offshoot of ISIS.

The spokesman said that according to the preliminary investigation, Mohammed Muhsin (28), a resident of Thrikaripur town in Kerala's Kasargod district, and others who had joined ISKP, are suspected to have been involved in the attack.

Muhsin went to the UAE in 2018 from where he is believed to have joined the ranks with the global terror organisation in Afghanistan, officials said. His identity was established after an Islamic state publication posted his picture identifying him with his Arabic name, Abu Khalid al-Hindi, the officials said.

They said he, along with his family, had returned to Kerala from Malaysia in 2017 and later left for Saudi Arabia in search of work.

The same year, he returned to Kerala and stayed with his family before leaving for the UAE in 2018, the officials said. The central agencies with the help of local police reached out to the accused's family, who identified him to be Muhsin from the published picture which had ISIS flag in the background, they said. His parents had claimed that they received a message from the ISIS confirming his death during the attack, the officials said.

A school dropout, Muhsin is believed to have landed in Afghanistan as a member of ISIS in the Khorasan Province, they said. With one of the victims in the gurdwara attack being an Indian, the amended NIA Act was applicable, they added.