Mumbai: Inside details of shocking plot by ISIS-inspired youth to poison temple prasad and water supply

The pharmacist used zinc phosphide and organophosphorus – chemicals used for dyeing and pesticides – to create a powerful poison. Not content with just attempting to poison the prasad, they wanted to contaminate a lake as well so that the poison would be part of people’s drinking water.

Another accused Salman’s house was being used to assemble the poison.

The authorities recovered the following from the house:

13 rubber hand gloves

50-100 ml of liquid in a plastic bottle which contain hydrogen peroxide

A fragrance that smells like vinegar in 1 litre bottle

A black container with label CREAPRO containing 300gm white powder 

White powder that looks like grains in two transparent plastic packets weighing 57.4 grams

3.2 grams white powder in a white plastic bottle

A glass bottle with label glycerine 

A white plastic bottle with label CLORIWAT liquid sodium hypochlorite

Two acid bottles

Methanol bottle

White jelly

All of the suspects were linked to a foreign handler, who was linked to ISIS ideology. He event sense info to the group. The accused were very careful while handling the poisons making sure to wear gloves.

The suspects were arrested in January this year by the ATS for their alleged links with ISIS terror outfit.

According to the charge sheet, the accused were influenced by the Islamic preacher Zakir Naik and had conspired to commit mass killing by poisoning the prasad during the 'Srimad Bhagavad Gita Katha' at the Shankar Temple of Mumbra in December.
They failed in carrying out the operation and were arrested before they could make their next move, the charge sheet added.
 

"The ATS had recently come to the temple with the arrested persons and asked some questions from the trustees and priests. Over 8,000 to 10,000 people come here every day so, we could not identify them or give any information," said one of the temple trustee Vishnu Patil.
 

Upon their arrest in January, police had claimed to have confiscated a huge cache of incriminating material from their possession including several chemical bottles, six pen drives, more than two dozen cell phones, over half a dozen laptops, six wi-fi pods, more than two dozen DVDs and CDs, a dozen of hard drives, more than half dozen memory cards, some internet dongles, few modems and more than a dozen RAMs.
 

The accused were reportedly in touch with someone from ISIS based outside India.
Senior ATS official had also informed that the nine arrested had formed an organisation named 'Ummat-e-Ahmadiya'. 

It is shocking to thing what would happened if ATS didn’t catch the aforementioned.

With inputs from agencies