New Delhi: The NIA has told a Delhi court that the seven foreign nationals arrested last week had entered Mizoram illegally before crossing over to Myanmar, where they imparted training to Ethnic Armed Groups (EAGs) known to support terrorist organisations operating in India and target the Myanmar Junta.
They imparted “pre-scheduled training” to EAG operatives in the domain of drone warfare, drone operations, and assembly and jamming technology, the National Investigation Agency informed the court Monday.
The agency said that six of the arrested persons are from Ukraine, while one is from the US. About the Ukrainian nationals, the agency told the court they were part of a group of 14 Ukrainians who entered India on tourist visas and flew to Guwahati before continuing their journey to Myanmar.
The seven people have been identified as Matthew Aaron Van Dyke, Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim, and Kaminskyi Viktor.
Van Dyke, the lone US national, was taken into custody by the agency from the Kolkata airport Friday evening.
Additionally, the Ukrainian trio of Petro, Taras and Sukmanovskyi was taken into custody at the Lucknow airport after being stopped by the Bureau of Immigration (BoI). The remaining accused were taken into custody at the airports in Kolkata and Delhi.
They were first produced before a Delhi court on Saturday, which sent them to the NIA custody till Monday. The agency secured an additional 11 days of custody for all seven accused until 27 March.
Representing the accused, senior advocate Pramod Dubey and Ankur Saigal argued that Section 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, which deals with offences amounting to criminal conspiracy for terrorist acts cannot be invoked in this case.
However, Additional Sessions Judge Prashant Sharma observed that the NIA’s FIR was not limited to just alleging the accused illegally entered Mizoram and then crossed over to Myanmar, but it also emphasised the alleged acts of “accused persons, linked with ethnic armed groups, supporting certain proscribed Indian insurgent groups, by supplying weapons, terrorist hardware and training them”.
These acts “definitely affect” India’s national security and interest and therefore “section 18 of UA(P)A broadly is attracted”, he said.
Further remand
The anti-terrorism agency also informed the court that during the investigation and their three-day custody, the accused persons made “important disclosures” related to the “conspiracy”, including them being in “direct touch” with terrorists “carrying AK-47 rifles”.
The agency also told the court that their mobile phones were being sent to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) to extract data that would reveal the extent of the conspiracy and the network of co-conspirators.
The agency also argued for further remand to ascertain the specific routes taken by the accused to enter and exit Myanmar through Mizoram. To achieve these purposes, the NIA told the court, the mobile data of the accused would be extracted, revealing the mastermind of the conspiracy and the source of funds for the operation.
“At this stage of the investigation, I have no grounds to have suspicion over the manner in which the FIR in question is registered or the manner in which investigation is being done,” Judge Sharma further observed.
“The aspects of collection of evidence, unearthing criminal conspiracy, identification of co-accused persons and analysis of mobile data of accused persons, are such that police custody of accused persons is justified,” he added.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also Read: Sold for $5,000, nails pulled out—Indians’ accounts of being trapped in Myanmar’s cyber scam hubs