NIA official shot dead in presence of wife, kids

NEW DELHI: As they continue to focus on the terror angle to Mohammed Tanzil’s murder, intelligence agencies are especially probing whether an Indian Mujahideen sleeper cell was behind the killing of the NIA officer, highly placed sources have told TOI.Of late, Islamic State handlers, led by its India commander Shafi Armar, have been trying to get in touch with members of a particular IM cell to get them to work for them. In the process, they had tapped some youths from western UP.“We are probing if the strike was to send out a message across to us for our action against them,” a top officer said. Sources said local criminals could have been roped in by these sleeper cells to execute the killing, a ploy (Maal-e-Ghanimat) trademark of the IM.In a meeting on Tuesday, attended by oficers of all anti-terror units based in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, all possibilities were analysed in detail but the IM-related one seemed most plausible, a source said. Tanzil, a Muslim officer at the forefront of anti-terror operations, could have irked IS handlers who have been rattled by the recent crackdown against their modules. The sleuths also feel that Tanzil would have been an easy-to-spot target, being from Bijnore, barely two hours from Sambhal and Roorkee from where recent terror modules were busted.“They would not have spared the son and the rest of the family if it was personal or a property dispute. However, we are probing all angles,” a senior investigator said. The wife came in the ambit of indiscriminate fire, cops said, while emphasising that nothing has been ruled out.