In a meticulously coordinated pre-dawn operation on Thursday, the Enforcement Directorate and Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad descended upon multiple villages in Padgha-Bhiwandi region of Thane district, executing searches at over a dozen locations linked to individuals suspected of channeling funds to prohibited terrorist organisations.

ED teams, armed with money-laundering warrants under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, focused on residences previously flagged during earlier counter-terror operations. Sources revealed that financial investigators are tracing layered transactions involving hawala networks, cryptocurrency wallets and donations routed through seemingly innocuous charitable entities that allegedly sustained radical ecosystems in rural Maharashtra.

The raids are a direct continuation of the June 2024 crackdown in Borivali village of Padgha, where the ATS and Thane rural police had searched 22 premises belonging to former SIMI office-bearer Saquib Nachan and his close associates. That operation yielded 19 mobile phones, incriminating digital material, extremist literature and documents revealing systematic recruitment and ideological indoctrination activities.

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Saquib Nachan, once convicted for orchestrating the 2002-2003 Mumbai serial bombings and later sentenced in 2016 for conspiring with Khalistani militants to execute attacks across India, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State immediately after his release in 2017. From his native Borivali village, he audaciously declared the area “Al Sham” – a self-styled liberated Islamic territory governed solely by Sharia, rejecting Indian constitutional law – while conducting secret “Sabath” oath ceremonies and imparting weapons and explosives training to new recruits.

Although Nachan died under NIA custody in a Delhi hospital in June this year, Thursday’s joint offensive indicates that central agencies believe his financial pipelines and ideological successors remain active and dangerous. With the National Investigation Agency having raided the same cluster two years ago, the repeated high-intensity operations underscore Padgha-Borivali’s transformation into one of Maharashtra’s most persistent incubators of prohibited extremist activity, prompting renewed fears that the ISIS-inspired network may be regrouping under fresh leadership.

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