Gujarat’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested 13 people it says comprised a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) module planning bomb attacks in the state, the latest in a run of terror conspiracies that the agency says it has preempted over the past two years.
The case began on July 2 when the ATS registered an FIR under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Over the following day, it arrested eight men in coordinated raids across Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
The ATS alleges the suspects set up the outfit ‘Darul Islam Gujarat Jaish-e-Mohammed’ and were in contact with Pakistan-based handlers Abdullah and Mohammad Umar. From the module, investigators say they recovered a JeM flag, printed copies of books by JeM chief Masood Azhar, a letter addressed to him, and Rs 1.30 lakh allegedly meant to fund the network.
On July 15, the ATS arrested five more men from Khadiyal village in Siddhpur taluka of Patan district, taking the total arrests to 13. A court at Kadi in Mehsana remanded them to ATS custody until July 24. Most are young, aged 20 to 24, and the ATS has described several as students at madrasas in Patan, Ahmedabad, Banaskantha and Bharuch.
Announcing the second round of arrests, ATS deputy inspector general Sunil Joshi said: “During the interrogation of Mohammed Amin Shera, arrested earlier this month, a shocking detail emerged that another group of persons was involved with him in making preparations for a blast.”
The core allegation is bomb-making. Public prosecutor P.R. Dantani told the Kadi court that one of the accused had attempted to build a time bomb. The ATS says the men sourced potassium nitrate, sulphur and charcoal, the constituents of gunpowder, through an online portal and local markets, and researched wire quality and the kind of pipes used to pack explosives.
Between 2023 and February 2026, the ATS’s written statement says, the accused made eight separate attempts at different locations to study explosive timer mechanisms and blast methods. Bomb-making material and JeM literature in Urdu are yet to be recovered, the ATS told the court, its stated ground for seeking custody.
The arrests fit a familiar pattern. In November 2025, the same DIG announced that the ATS had foiled a plot by three men, led by China-trained doctor Ahmed Mohiuddin Saiyed, to prepare ricin, a lethal toxin, for an attack. Joshi had then said Saiyed “had planned to collect funds and recruit persons” for major terrorist activity, and the ATS said his handler, Abu Khadija, was an Afghanistan-based Islamic State Khorasan Province operative.
The trio was accused of surveillance of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) office in Lucknow and crowded wholesale markets in Delhi and Ahmedabad. In January 2026, the National Investigation Agency took over that probe, examining possible links to the 2025 Red Fort blast. The NIA filed its chargesheet against all three accused in an Ahmedabad special court in May 2026. The case is awaiting trial.
Other recent cases follow the same template of alleged ideological association and a plan said to have been stopped in time. In July 2025, the ATS arrested four men it linked to Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) over Instagram propaganda; in early 2026, it made further arrests over ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ content and alleged plans to target RSS functionaries.
The ATS says it arrested more than 20 suspected terrorists and radical elements between July 2025 and July 2026 alone. These arrests are the result of allegations of sinister plans, but the majority of them are awaiting trial in court.
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