New Delhi: A terror suspect arrested with grenades last year was killed by his cellmate on the intervening night of 8 and 9 February at Faridabad district jail, police said.
Abdul Rehman, a resident of Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh, was allegedly attacked with a “stony object” by Arun Choudhary, who shared the prison cell with him and another inmate, a Faridabad Police spokesperson said Monday. A team of district police officers is questioning Choudhary at the jail premises.
Rehman, police said, was arrested by the Haryana Special Task Force on Sohna-Pali road in March last year after receiving inputs from the Gujarat Anti Terrorism Squad. Police officers recovered two grenades, an equal number of detonators, and grenade-handling pins from his backpack.
According to the Gujarat ATS and Haryana STF, Rehman held radical ideology and was believed to be a member of a terrorist organisation. They alleged he was being guided by a handler abroad.
A Faridabad court framed charges against him in November last year under the Explosives Act 1884, Explosives Substances Act 1908, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, and sections 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) and 238 (destruction of evidence) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita 2023, based on a Haryana Police chargesheet.
Police said Choudhary was transferred from Kathua District Jail to the Faridabad facility in October 2024 after Jammu and Kashmir Police took cognisance of a video in which he was purportedly caught using mobile phones from inside the jail and claiming he had bribed officials to use them.
A resident of RS Pura in Jammu district, Choudhary was arrested from a hotel in Amritsar in January 2024, along with another accused, in connection with a 2023 murder case in Samba, Jammu. He faces eight criminal cases, including charges of murder and attempt to murder in Jammu and Amritsar, police sources told ThePrint.
The Amritsar case was registered after Choudhary allegedly fired upon a Samba district police team that had come to arrest him in the murder case, sources added.
Police declined to comment on the possible motive behind Rehman’s killing, saying preliminary questioning of the accused would reveal further details.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)