A week after two suspects were arrested for killing a man, Delhi Police have uncovered a complex terror web stretching from Pakistan to Canada with “handlers” directing hit jobs on political leaders in India, in return for hefty cash rewards.

The revelations come ahead of the Republic Day celebrations in India. Delhi Police has now launched a search for at least four people suspected to be part of the terror conspiracy in which gangsters planned “targeted killings” of certain political leaders through two criminals – Naushad and Jagga. Last Thursday, Delhi Police Special Cell arrested the two men from the national capital’s Jahangirpuri area after the body parts of an unidentified man were found in the area.

An investigation revealed that the victim was beheaded on camera and visuals were then allegedly shared by the duo with their handler sitting in Pakistan. Police also recovered pistols, two grenades and 22 live cartridges from their possession. The police said that the suspects had murdered the man and dumped his chopped body “to prove their credibility” to their handlers.

The arrested suspects – Jagjit Singh Jagga (29) who also goes by the names of Jassa, Yaqoob alias Kaptaan, a resident of Uddham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand – and Naushad Ali (56), a resident of Jahangirpuri, were arrested under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code and the 25 Arms Act. UAPA has also been slapped against the killers, who were produced before the Patiala House Court on Friday and sent to police remand for 14 days.

According to Police, Jagga and Naushad met in 2020 when both of them were lodged in Uttarakhand’s Haldwani Jail. In April 2022, Naushad who was released after the end of his 16-month imprisonment, returned to Delhi where he was contacted by Jagga who had jumped parole. Both of them started living together at Naushad’s residence in Jahagirpuri and got involved in trafficking drugs and firearms.

Naushad was meanwhile in touch with LeT terrorist Sohail whom he had met while both of them were lodged in Tihar Jail in 2011. According to sleuths of Delhi Police Special Cell, Sohail asked Naushad to carry out Jihadist activities in return for huge sums of money.

Naushad had also twice visited Nepal in 2019, in an attempt to obtain a Nepali passport that would facilitate his travel to Pakistan. Naushad, however, failed to obtain a Nepali passport.

Jagga, meanwhile, came in contact with members of the Arsh Dalla gang who had sheltered one Sukhpret of Punjab’s Moga involved in the grenade attack in the November 2022 Pathankot attack.

Delhi Police sources said that Canada-based Arsh Dalla had offered Rs 1 crore to Jagga to kill Amit Arora, a Shiv-Sena leader in Punjab. The attack was planned around Republic Day and for this Jagga had conducted a recce in December last year. Jagga was also contracted to target Gursimran Singh Mand of the Congress party, who is also the president of the International Anti-Khalistan Front for which he was offered Rs 1.5 crore, according to Delhi Police.

Further, according to sources, both Jagga and Naushad had received money as advance payment through hawala operators and asked to prove their trustworthiness. The duo then killed a boy in December last year and chopped his body into parts using a machete and sent the video to their handlers in Pakistan.

During his interrogation, Jagga revealed that he was in contact with his Khalistani handler in Germany and a member of the Bambiha gang, currently operating from Saudi Arabia.

In the latest development, the Delhi Police got information about the involvement of eight persons in the module. The police suspect the possible presence of four others in India presently.

“Their handlers sitting at the border sent instructions on the Signal app, after which they shared the location of the bag full of weapons through Google Maps. About eight people are involved in this module of terrorists out of which four can still be present in India only. Two terrorists were used to provide weapons and two were used to send the Google location of the weapons to their bosses by keeping the weapons at a particular location,” a source said.