Jailed ISIS Suspect Abu Musa Slashes Guard's Neck, Shouts Jihadi Slogans in Kolkata

Kolkata: West Bengal’s lone ISIS member Mohammed Musiruddin alias Abu Musa, who was arrested last year for his alleged role in the Burdwan blast, slashed the neck of a guard at the Alipore Central Jail with an improvised weapon on Sunday.

The critically injured guard has been taken to a hospital. State prison minister, Ujjwal Biswas, confirmed the shocking incident and said a preliminary inquiry has revealed that Musa used a long iron nail to pierce the neck of the guard.

“Such terrorists are trained in beheading. He was desperate to kill the guard with the nail but other jail officials rushed to the spot and managed to overpower him in time,” Biswas said, adding that Musa has been shifted to another cell in the same jail and is kept under heavy security.

The incident took place around 6am at Block 13, where Musa was kept confined in solitary cell number 2. The victim, Govindo Chandra Dey, had gone to his cell for a routine inspection, but the moment he opened the gate, Musa hit him with a brick on his head and then stabbed him with the nail.

Govindo raised an alarm and the other officials rushed to rescue him. After he was pinned down, Musa raised pro-ISIS slogans. He said the attack was part of his ‘jihad’.

Officials said they also found some chemical from his pockets, which he planned to rub on the warder’s neck wound. However, they did not say how he managed to sneak in a chemical into his solitary confinement cell.

Musa was arrested in July last year from the Biswa Bharati passenger train in connection with Burdwan blast case. The case was later handed over to the National Investigation Agency.

The NIA chargesheet said Musa was involved in furthering the terrorist conspiracy of ISIS in India and Bangladesh and had been in communication with Shafi Armar (IS India in-charge) through social media websites. It also said that Musa had planned lone wolf attacks on foreign tourists as well as ISIS-style beheadings.

In 2016, Musa was also questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Kolkata to investigate his link with Syria-based terrorist Sultan Abdul Kadir Armar to target American nationals in India.