Karnataka: Man suspected to have links with Pakistan based terror organisation held in Davangere

Davangere: A man suspected of having links with a Pakistan-based terror organisation was arrested in this district, police said on Wednesday.

The accused, identified as Suhail (20), is a native of Uttar Pradesh, they said.

He had recently arrived in Harihar taluk, where he was working as a painter, police added.


The accused was picked up on Tuesday in a joint operation with intelligence officials following inputs from the National Investigation Agency.

"We secured the accused and handed him over to the investigating agency concerned," a senior police officer said, without divulging further details.

According to police, suspected terror-related material was found on his WhatsApp account, and he was allegedly in contact with several persons based in Pakistan.

The arrest comes weeks after two men were arrested from Tumakuru and Davangere districts on June 4 for allegedly maintaining contact through social media with a Pakistan-based individual and conspiring to carry out activities prejudicial to India's national security.

Confirming the arrest, Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge said a Uttar Pradesh native arrested was found to have been in contact with some Pakistanis.

The minister underlined further details would emerge only after the investigation is completed.

Kharge said preliminary findings indicated that the individual had come to Karnataka in search of work and that investigators had recovered information from his mobile phone, leading to his arrest.

"According to the preliminary investigation and the information available, that person from Uttar Pradesh had apparently come here in search of work. Some information has been detected from his mobile phone. So he's been arrested," Kharge told reporters in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

He said chats recovered from the mobile phone suggested that the accused had been in touch with some Pakistanis.

"It has emerged from the chats that he was in contact with some Pakistanis. But whether there has been any large-scale indoctrination or anything else, that will be known only after the investigation is completed. For now, he is in custody," he said.