Overview
- The National Investigation Agency registered the new case on Thursday, taking over an April Uttar Pradesh ATS FIR that first flagged Pakistan-based recruiter Shahzad Bhatti and other accused.
- The NIA’s FIR names Pakistan-based figures including Shahzad Bhatti and alleged ISI operatives along with two India-based suspects who were arrested by UP ATS in April.
- Investigators say the network used social media, messaging apps and radical YouTube channels to groom young Indians and offered money or jobs as inducements to recruit operatives.
- The central government declared the Shahzad Bhatti Network a terrorist organisation under the UAPA in September and security agencies said they arrested more than 200 suspected operatives across 14 states during coordinated operations in August.
- Centralising the probe at the NIA is meant to link digital forensics, cross-border leads and state arrests from places such as Assam and Uttar Pradesh and could prompt further arrests and evidence-sharing with foreign agencies.