Mother of Hezbollah Khan, arrested in terrorist conspiracy, claimed that he was mentally ill.

Claiming a major success in the anti-terrorism crackdown in Uttar Pradesh, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of UP Police has arrested two youths from Noida. According to the police, both of them are accused of conspiring to carry out target killing in the state at the behest of a network linked to Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. The family members of one of the accused claim that the suspect is mentally ill.

The arrested accused have been identified as ‘Tushar Chauhan’ alias Hizbullah Khan and the other as Sameer Khan. Police say both the suspects were in contact with Pakistan-based gangsters Shahzad Bhatti and Abid Jat and were working on their instructions. Preliminary investigation has revealed that the accused had planned to murder many high-profile people of the state. For this, an attempt was allegedly being made to create a sleeper cell by radicalizing the Indian youth.

According to investigating agencies, Hezbollah Khan had contacted Pakistani handler Shahzad Bhatti through social media platform Instagram. He was allegedly offered Rs 3 lakh to carry out the murder and the plan was to use hand grenades and pistols as weapons. At the same time, Sameer Khan is accused of propagating the ideology of the banned organization Tehreek-e-Taliban Hindustan (TTH).

Police also said that the accused had given threats to many people over phone in the last few months and during these calls, Pakistani handlers were also included in the conference calls.

During the operation, ATS recovered a pistol, five live cartridges and a knife from the accused. In this case, a case has been registered at the ATS police station in Lucknow under the Indian Judicial Code (BNS), Arms Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Police have sought custodial remand of the accused to identify other possible members of the network and investigation into the case is ongoing.

A day after his arrest, the family of accused Hezbollah Khan has described the police allegations as a “serious mistake”. Hizbullah Khan’s mother claimed that her son was suffering from mental health problems and was not able to take care of himself. She said, “I still bathe him, even though he is in his 20s. My son is in treatment…he is not even able to manage his life…how can he be a terrorist?”

According to the family, medical documents have described him as suffering from “conduct disorder”, which includes problems such as aggressive behavior and breaking rules. The father also hit out at the claims of alleged radicalization and foreign contacts, saying that his son spent most of the time in the room and played online games.

However, police officials have not publicly commented on these claims of the family. ADG (Law and Order) Amitabh Yash said, “It was only after a thorough investigation that it was revealed that both the people were under the influence of Pakistan’s terror module and were becoming hardcore terrorists.” At present, the investigation of the case is going on and the agencies are investigating other aspects of this entire network.

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