Probing the alleged Ricin terror plot, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) conducted a search at the residence of the arrested Hyderabad doctor on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sources said Cyberabad police observed from a distance as the ATS team seized unidentified chemicals and raw material from Dr Ahmed Mohiuddin Saiyed’s flat.
A team from the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) searched the home — also a “workshop” — of 35-year-old Saiyed, the main accused in the alleged bio-terror plot using the lethal chemical agent. The seized material will be sent to a forensic lab. Sources told The Indian Express that the accused man, according to the interrogation, had not yet successfully isolated the toxin from Castor beans (Ricinus communis) before his arrest in Gujarat. Neither had he decided what delivery mechanism to use in the purported bio-terror attack that the ATS said it had foiled.
Investigators are looking closely at the 2018 Ricin bomb plot in Cologne, Germany, where a radicalised couple had allegedly successfully isolated Ricin. They were held before any attempted attack.
On Sunday, the Gujarat ATS claimed that Dr Saiyed was a member of a suspected terror module. His handler, Abu Khadija, the ATS said, is associated with the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). Two other men from Uttar Pradesh were also arrested in connection with the case on November 8.
Sources said Saiyed (36), a general physician, is unmarried and lives alone in a flat. A general physician who pursued his MBBS degree in China, sources said he would offer free online consultations and was not part of any hospital or clinic. Sources also said he was a business partner at an online food outlet.
Police sources said Saiyed’s family members had confronted him several times about “parcels” he was receiving, which often included chemicals. He purportedly assured them that he was creating a chemical for commercial purposes which would “make them wealthy”, sources claimed.
The family hails from Telangana’s Khammam district. The doctor is the youngest of six children. Sources said the ATS will send teams to Uttar Pradesh, where the two other suspects hail from.
