A day after three youths were nabbed by the NTR District police in Vijayawada for suspected terror links, the police teams from Andhra Pradesh arrested three more suspects from various States on Wednesday.
The police team arrested Sayeeda Begum from Chanchalaguda area of Hyderabad in Telangana and Abdul Salam from Ballari in Karnataka, on Wednesday.
Based on reliable information, the A.P. police also picked up 19-year-old Zeeshan from Nai Sadak area of Jodhpur in Rajasthan late on Tuesday evening. With this, the total arrests in the terror link case has gone up to six.
According to police, Zeeshan was the handler linked to the terrorist outfit ISIS. Suspicious videos related to ISIS were recovered from the accused’s mobile phone. He allegedly used social media groups to brainwash young people and radicalise them with extremist ideology.
The accused was also in contact with other ISIS-linked individuals who are already in jail. The A.P. police team worked in coordination with the Sadar Bazaar police team led by SHO Manak Ram.
“The accused had deleted all extremist videos and anti-national content from his phone after coming to know that his accomplices were arrested in Vijayawada. However, the forensic team successfully recovered the deleted data,” said a police officer associated with the investigation.
Investigation revealed that Zeeshan was the admin of a group named ‘BENX’, where he regularly uploaded short radical videos and voice notes, promoting extremist ideology.
Police sources say that the handler had tested him before assigning him the role of the admin. After successfully passing the test, Zeeshan was given control of the group, following which he began influencing other youths.
As per the police, Zeeshan had been associated with the group for nearly two years. Further questioning is expected to reveal more contacts linked to the network, said the police.
It is also learnt that the NTR Commissionerate police is likely to hand over the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for further investigation.
NTR Police Commissionererate in-charge Commissioner Sarvashresth Tripathi said special teams have been sent to Delhi, West Bengal, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Bihar, Rajasthan and other States to arrest the remaining accused in the case.
“The police seized the videos, posts and speeches of Pakistani-based preacher Israr Ahmed, who advocates the establishment of the Caliphate, documents relating to jihadi activities, literature on the basics of explosives and some banned literature from the main accused Md. Rahamatullah Shariff,” Mr, Tripathi said.
The arrested also created ‘Al-Malik Youth Islamic Committee (AMYIC) in 2023, and a YouTube channel titled Al-Malik Youth Union for discussing their activities, a police officer said.
“The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) police had earlier arrested terror suspects Sevilla Qureshi and his followers Shama Parveen and Mohammad Faiq in July, 2025, who are reportedly from this same group,” a senior police officer told The Hindu on Wednesday.
Published – March 25, 2026 08:51 pm IST
