IS militant shot dead in India after long siege

Police said they ended a almost 12-hour stand-off in the early hours by storming the house where the suspect, identified as Saifullah, was holed up in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Ganesh identified the slain suspect as Saifullah, and said he was wanted in connection with Tuesday’s train blast near Bhopal in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

“After opening the doors of the house (where the terrorist was holed up), the force went inside and found the suspect dead along with weapons”, ADG Chaudhary said.

“We got a lead on these operatives from outside the state and we are on the trail”, said Additional Director General (Law and Order) Daljeet Chowdhary.

Call it shocking and unbelievable but the Uttar Pradesh actually beat Telangana Anti-Terrorist squad mistaking them for a part of some terror outfit.

Though reports are still coming in of all the efforts to nab the suspect alive, with police indulging in “restrained operations”, the situation is extremely volatile, and is likely to rile up the voters who cast their ballot tomorrow. They are in the age group of 25-35 years and except Danish who belongs to Aligarh, the others are residents of Lucknow.

The police said he was an active member of the terror group ISIS and was believed to be involved in a train blast in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday.

A nationwide alert has been sounded, and security beefed up in UP, particularly in 40 Assembly seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh going to the polls Wednesday.

“The terror operation they conducted in Madhya Pradesh was only a trailer” Sources related to the interrogation said.

The search operation was carried out by ATS, moments after a blast took place in Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train which left nine people injured.

After the initial exchange for fire, the ATS commandos lobbed chilly bombs inside the house to incapacitate him, but to no avail. It appears that only one person was hiding inside the house.”An official confirmation about terrorist’s death was, however, awaited. But, whether he has been indoctrinated or not is a matter of investigation”.

Atif Muzaffar alias Al Qasim and Mohammad Danish alias Zafar (both from Kanpur) were arrested by MP police.

A report in NDTV says that the bomb which was used on the train was assembled in the Lucknow house.