‘IS couple’ that ‘plotted 100 blasts’ in Delhi get up to 20 years in jail

NEW DELHI: Winter was in the air in Delhi in 2019 when Jahanjeb Sami shifted to Delhi from Jammu and Kashmir with his wife, Hina Bashir Baig. The two had got married on Oct 6 — when Srinagar was still under a lockdown following the abrogation of Article 370 — and the couple had left for Delhi two weeks later. Sami, who had a BTech and MBA degrees, was working for a UK-based firm.Baig had also earned an MBA done an MBA after pursuing a bachelor’s in computer applications. She worked for some banks before taking a break that year for her wedding.
The couple, both in their mid-30s, rented a flat in Jamia Nagar’s C Block. Initially, they spent the weekends watching a movie or visiting the bird sanctuary in Okhla. But that didn't last long. Anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests broke out and the couple mostly stayed indoors. The following year was no different because of Covid and the two spent most of their time indoor surfing the internet.

But in the early hours of March 8 in 2020, sleuths of the anti-terror unit of Delhi Police came knocking on their door. The couple was arrested and booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, leaving their families devastated.
According to police, Sami and Baig were apparently different people in the realm of the internet. Baig was Hannabee and Katijah al Kashmiri while Sami was Xaib, Abu Abdullah and Abu Muhammad-al-Hind. According to the cops, they were members of Islamic State (IS) and were operating on instructions of handlers based in Syria and Afghanistan. Amidst the hullabaloo, the case was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) 10 days later. After spending some time on remand, the couple was sent to jail in judicial custody.
Four years and a month later, a court has pronounced the couple guilty. On Monday, Sami was sentenced to varying sentences of three to 20 years on charges of attempting to establish a caliphate and plotting to carry out 100 blasts in a single day in the city, while Baig was awarded two sentences of seven years each, bringing the curtains down on their case.
The investigation, upheld by the court, revealed that the two were under surveillance for several months before their arrest. In the summer of 2019, sleuths of an intelligence agency were intrigued after intercepting some communications being made through an encrypted chat platform by an account in the name of Hannabee.
They dug deeper and found two suspicious entities who were in contact with some IS entities. This was around the time when the terror organisation had launched its India-specific operations under the name of Wilayah-al-Hind. A digital magazine in the name of Sawt-al-Hind (Voice of India) had also emerged online and on apps like Telegram. The two entities were also found provoking and radicalising some youths to stoke violence during the ongoing anti-CAA/NRC protests, the cops claimed. According to NIA’s chargesheet, the couple was in contact with Abu Usman al Kashmiri from IS-Khorasan Province and prepared the magazine. The two were influenced by IS commander Huzaifa al Bakistai — who was killed in a drone strike in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan in 2019 — and one of their first articles in the magazine eulogised the dead militant.
Though the cops were onto them, tracing “Xaib and Hannabee” was not an easy task. The computer savvy couple had covered their tracks well but the sleuths were eventually able to infiltrate their network. “The communications revealed that they were actively radicalising people across India,” disclosed an investigator. “Hina, who had pursued her studies from Pune, and her husband were also in touch with a Pune-based couple. The man was a gym trainer and the woman, Sadia, were already on the radar of agencies for IS leanings. Hina had managed to convince Sadia to wear a suicide belt in an upcoming mission.”