An employee of the public sector defence entity, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was arrested yesterday for alleged links with foreign terror outfits.

Karnataka police said that the employee, who was working as an engineer for the Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW & C) department was arrested along with 10 other alleged extremists in the Indian city of Bangalore. According to the state police officials, the detained were affiliated to various Islamist terror organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and the Harkat-ul-Jihadal-Islami (HuJI).

Law enforcement agencies later identified the detained DRDO engineer as Ejaz Mohammed Mirza, a junior software engineer with the AEW&C department. Lalrokhuma Pachau, the chief of the Karnataka state police said that a 7.65mm revolver, several cartridges, extremist literature, and hardware disks were also seized from the residence of the accused.

Six of the accused were nabbed by the Bangalore City Crime Branch (CCB) from the state capital, while the remaining suspects were arrested in the city of Hubli. All of those arrested were reported to be in their twenties.

According to the CCB officials, the suspects were planning to carry out several attacks against the parliamentarians, legislators, and journalists in Karnataka. They also added that the suspects remained in constant touch with their patrons in Saudi Arabia, who provided them with technical expertise and financial support. In addition to Mirza, the others arrested from Bangalore are Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, Mohammed Yousuf Nalband, Abdul Hakim Jamadar, Riyaz Ahmed Byahatti, and Muthi-ur-Rehman Siddiqui. Siddiqui was working with the Indian English language daily Deccan Herald as a journalist for the past several years.

An official with the Hubli-Dharwad police department said that the operation to nab the alleged extremists in Hubli was carried out at 9am by the CCB, without informing any other law enforcement agencies in the area. The detained were later identified as Obaidullah Imran Bahadur, Mohammed Sadiq Lashkar, Waheed Hussain, Dr Jaffar Iqbal Sholapur, and Mahaboob Bagalkote.

The possible infiltration by Islamic extremists in to strategically important programs like the AEW & C has ringed alarm bells in the defence establishment. The program was launched by the DRDO in 2003, and was expected to complete within the next few years. However, unexpected delays within the program have forced the Indian Armed Forces to purchase AEW&C aircrafts from foreign suppliers.