Four absconding activists from the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) were arrested by the police in Rourkela late Tuesday night in a joint operation by the Odisha Police, Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Intelligence Bureau.
The arrests came after a three-hour-long gunbattle between the security forces and the terrorists.
The four had fled from a jail in Madhya Pradesh in 2013. Some ammunition was also been seized from them.
Those arrested have been identified as Mohd Khalid, Amjad Khan, Zakir Hussein and S Mahboob.
Officials said they were also on the radar of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with their probe cases.
As many as seven Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) cadres had escaped from the jail on 1 October 2013. While one had surrendered the very next day, another was caught from Madhya Pradesh the same year and the rest had been at large since then.
(With inputs from PTI and ANI)
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