22-year-old tailor arrested by Gujarat ATS for plotting targeted killing in UP

The ATS statement said it seized a country-made pistol purchased from UP six months ago and six bullets from Salmani.

Published on: Jan 27, 2026, 21:01:30 IST

By Maulik Pathak

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A 22-year-old tailor has been arrested in Gujarat’s Navsari district on charges of plotting targeted killings and conspiring to wage a war against the central government, the Gujarat anti-terror squad (ATS) said in a statement.

The ATS said Mohammed Abu Bakar, an associate of the tailor, was on the run (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The suspect has been identified as Faizan Shakil Salmani, a native of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. Salmani had been living in Navsari district’s Zarakwad area.

“The plot involved attacking and killing certain well-known youths in UP with weapons to spread terror, as well as conspiring to separate Kashmir from India through Jihad. To execute this conspiracy, he had stockpiled deadly weapons,” the Gujarat ATS statement claimed.

The ATS statement said it has seized a country-made pistol purchased from UP six months ago and six bullets from Salmani.

The ATS said it had come across an Instagram account that was allegedly operated by Faizan and traced him to Navsari, following which a joint team of ATS and Navsari police conducted a raid and arrested him.

The statement said his phone’s examination revealed digital material supporting banned terrorist organisations Jaish-e-Mohammed and Al-Qaeda, maps portraying Kashmir as separate from India, and lists of individuals marked for killing, and calls for killing them.

Investigators also seized 29 pages of content that promoted extremist ideology, glorified “jihad” and attempted to radicalise youth.

During interrogation, Faizan allegedly said that he joined an online group three months ago where names and photographs of persons accused of insulting the Prophet were circulated with instructions to kill them, and that he forwarded this content.

ATS said Salmani and another person, Mohammed Abu Bakar, conspired to incite violence, and wage a war inspired by Jaish-e-Mohammed and Al-Qaeda.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maulik Pathak
He is an Ahmedabad-based journalist with more than two decades of experience. His career spans business journalism and general news, with reporting across politics, crime, governance, public policy, business, industry, infrastructure, energy, ports, aviation, the environment, wildlife and social issues. He began his career in feature writing before moving into business journalism, reporting on companies and sectors including energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and real estate. Over the years, his work expanded to politics, courts, crime, public policy, civic affairs, the environment and wildlife. His reporting has taken him from government offices and courtrooms to factory floors, ports, forests and remote villages, covering stories that range from industrial investments and financial markets to elections, conservation and issues affecting everyday life. While many assignments demand the pace of the daily news cycle, others require sustained reporting over months and years to follow developments beyond the headlines. He started his journalism career with the Asian Age in Ahmedabad in 2002 as a feature writer and sub-editor. Since 2022, he has been working with Hindustan Times. Earlier, he worked with Business Standard, DNA, The Economic Times, Mint and The Times of India. His longest stint was with Mint, where he spent more than eight years reporting across multiple beats. During his career, he has worked in both reporting and editing roles, contributing to page planning, local editions and special editorial projects as newsrooms evolved from print-first operations to digital publishing. Early in his career, he also worked on media and documentary projects with an NGO and as a copywriter at a communications agency before returning to journalism. Away from work, he sometimes makes time for a pair of binoculars, table tennis, cinema and the occasional poem.Read More

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