Odishatv Bureau

Bhubaneswar: A day after a court allowed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take three out of the five SIMI arrested SIMI operatives on 15 days’ remand, the national investigating agency took the trio to Bhopal on Thursday for further interrogation.

According to sources, Amjad Khan, Zakir Hussain and Sheikh Mehboob, the three SIMI operatives, were taken on remand by the NIA team.

The five SIMI terrorists who were arrested from Rourkela last month were sent to 14-day judicial custody by the court of the Sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) after their remand ended on Tuesday.

The special task force (STF) of the Odisha Crime Branch has already grilled the five operatives and has reportedly gathered vital information about their purpose of stay in Odisha, their local facilitators, network, associates etc.

Notably, the five SIMI operatives, including a woman, who had escaped from a jail in Madhya Pradesh in 2013 and were allegedly involved in terror activities in several states, were arrested on February 17 from a rented house in Rourkela where they were staying.

The five were caught following a brief exchange of fire during an operation launched by the tactical unit of Odisha Special Operation Group (SOG) and Telangana Police.

They had been staying in Rourkela for the past 4-5 months to collect money through dacoity for carrying out their operations. All of them hailed from Madhya Pradesh and were wanted by NIA.

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