ISIS-Backed Terrorist Plot Using Deadly Ricin Chemical Busted: Sources

A terrorist module operated by the Islamic State, or ISIS, was planning chemical attacks across the country using ricin – a highly toxic substance extracted from castor beans when they are processed into castor oil – sources in the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad told NDTV Friday.

Last week Gujarat ATS officials arrested three people, including Ahmed Mohiyuddin Saiyyad, a Hyderabad doctor who graduated from a Chinese university, and seized materials and equipment that could be used to manufacture ricing, including three kilograms of castor pulp and five litres of acetone, a solvent used in extraction processes. Cops also found a cold press, which is used to extract oil.

On Friday officials told NDTV they had found CCTV footage showing Mohiyuddin leaving a hotel, the Grand Ambience, in Ahmedabad on the evening of November 7, a week before his arrest.

Officials believe Mohiyuddin and other members of this module – Mohammad Suhail, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur, has been identified so far – were also handling arms and ammunition as part of their attack plan. ISIS flags were recovered from Suhail's residence.

Ricin is lethal if inhaled, injected, or ingested, making it a versatile and deadly poison. Once extracted, it can be prepared as a powder or pellet, or even aerosolised or dissolved in water.

Anti-terror and law enforcement agencies are on high alert across the country after a Hyundai i20, stuffed with ammonium nitrate fuel oil, was detonated by a suicide bomber outside Dehi's Red Fort.

Fifteen people were killed in the worst terror attack on the national capital since 2008, when bombs exploded at three busy markets and killed 60 people.

The Red Fort terror attack was Delhi's first experience of a car bomb, or VBIED.

The Red Fort terrorists – a majority of whom were doctors working at the Al-Falah Hospital in Faridabad – have been linked to another group, the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, which intel from last week said had begun fund-raising for more 'fidayeen', or suicide, attacks on India.

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Intel sources, meanwhile, have also flagged the worrisome possibility of advisory or even operational links between the Jaish module and the Hamas group in Gaza. Terrorists posing as doctors may be using staff lockers at hospitals to store arms and ammunition, NDTV was told.

READ | Guns In Hospitals? Terrorists' Hamas-Like Plan A Major Red Flag: Sources

In the case of the Red Fort attack, for example, police recovered an assault rifle from the locker of Dr Adil Ahmad Rather, who had been employed at the Government Medical College in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag. Another was found in a Maruti Dzire car registered to Dr Shahin Saeed.