Mahim Police Hold a JeM Suspect on Enmity Charges

Mahim police arrested Mohammad Hasan Abu Sarmad Akhtar, 33, on 22 October after the Maharashtra ATS detained him near Mahim Metro station over alleged Jaish-e-Mohammed links. He worked as a Rapido rider and sold perfume in the same neighbourhood.

The FIR cites Section 196(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the offence of promoting enmity between groups. Officers are still checking a claimed contact with a Pakistani intelligence operative.

Mahim Police Booked Him for Enmity

The Kalachowki unit of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad got a tip on 21 October that a Mahim resident was in touch with a Pakistani intelligence operative. A team held Akhtar near the metro station, went through his phone and social accounts, then handed him to Mahim police, who arrested him the next day.

He was produced before a court on 23 October and remanded in police custody. Kishore Pawar, senior police inspector at Mahim police station, is the officer on the record for the FIR.

Police are investigating if anyone else was involved in the alleged online activity and are verifying the intelligence input about a suspected contact. The accused has been arrested and is currently in police custody.

Kishore Pawar, senior police inspector, Mahim police station

Section 196 sits in Chapter XI of the 2023 code, offences against public tranquillity. Sub-section (1) covers words, signs, and electronic communication that promote disharmony or ill-will between groups, and it allows up to three years in prison, a fine, or both. The offence is cognizable and non-bailable. The five-year term in 196(2) applies only inside a place of worship, which is not this case.

Jaish-e-Mohammed, also listed as Tehrik-e-Furqan and the People’s Anti-Fascist Front, is a terrorist organisation on the First Schedule at serial number 6 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Membership, support, and conspiracy under that Act are the charges Gujarat ATS used in July. They are not in the Mahim FIR.

THE MAHIM CALENDAR

1. 4 May to 18 October 2026: The ATS complaint says Akhtar used Instagram and X to comment on religious and political posts.
2. 1 June 2026: Two audio clips attributed to JeM chief Masood Azhar are uploaded to a Telegram group he administered.
3. 8 September 2026: A comment from Instagram account @hasanshaikh6603 appears under a post about a reported security lapse before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mumbai visit and refers to the assassination of Indira Gandhi in relation to Modi.
4. 21 October 2026: Kalachowki ATS receives the intelligence input and detains Akhtar near Mahim Metro station.
5. 22 October 2026: Mahim police arrest him under Section 196(1).

If the JeM membership claim were ready for court, the UAPA sections used in Gujarat this year would be the obvious fit. They are not on this paper.

What Investigators Pulled From the Phone

The case, as written in the ATS complaint, is a trail of comments and files. Officers took the phone into custody and kept screenshots. A first pass of his Facebook and WhatsApp accounts found no objectionable posts.

WHAT THE PHONE SEARCH FOUND

• Comment window: Instagram and X posts on religious and political issues between 4 May and 18 October 2026, some of which officers say promoted hostility between communities.
• The 8 September post: The @hasanshaikh6603 comment under a report on a security lapse before the prime minister’s Mumbai visit, tying that report to Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
• X replies: Comments that the ATS says called for jihad, written under posts on disputes involving places of worship.
• The screenshot file: 39 screenshots of social media content, preserved as evidence.
• Clean apps: Facebook and WhatsApp, on a preliminary review, showed no similar posts or comments.

That mix is why the FIR reads as a public-tranquillity case. Hostile comments and a threat-tinged reply under a prime minister travel story can sustain 196(1) without proving that the writer belonged to a banned group. The JeM label in the briefing still has to be tied to those files.

Three Names on a Telegram Group

The squad says Akhtar was administrator of a Telegram group with three members, including him. On 1 June, two audio speeches attributed to Masood Azhar went up in that group. One recording, the complaint says, concerned the Babri Masjid.

Two other people in a chat is a tiny cell. It is also a closed room. Investigators still have to show who the other two were, whether they were in Mumbai, and whether anyone took an instruction from the clips. Pawar said police are checking if anyone else was involved in the online activity.

The ATS also says Akhtar subscribed to a Telegram channel it called extremist and Pakistan-backed, named in several briefings as IBN-e-Qasim. That channel does not appear in public listings as a known JeM organ. For now it is an allegation about a subscription, not a recovered command chain.

Banned groups have for years used Telegram channels to broadcast propaganda and then pull people into private chats. A three-person group with two Azhar clips fits that cheap layer. It does not, by itself, match a module that buys chemicals and writes letters to a commander.

Gujarat’s July Module Carried Bomb Charges

The Mahim arrest is being placed next to a Gujarat ATS case from July as if both were one JeM sweep. The charging documents do not read that way. Gujarat registered a case on 2 July under the UAPA and the BNS, then arrested eight people on 3 July in raids across Banaskantha, Mehsana, Navsari, Patan, and Dewas in Madhya Pradesh.

MUMBAI AND GUJARAT ON PAPER

The Gujarat ATS said in a statement that the first eight “established an active network of JeM in Gujarat” and “were in contact with Pakistani handlers.” It said they had formed Darul Islam Gujarat Jaish-e-Mohammed, translated JeM literature into Gujarati, and received about Rs 3 lakh, used to buy an old car that was never transferred into their names. Eight letters typed in Urdu and addressed to Masood Azhar were seized, along with a Gujarati translation of his book Dars-e-Jihad.

On 15 July the same agency arrested five more men from Khadiyal village in Siddhpur taluka of Patan district, after names came up in interrogation of Mohammad Amin Shera, 21, of Siddhpur, who was among the first eight. ATS deputy inspector general Sunil Joshi said a second group had been involved with Shera “in making preparations for a blast.” Public prosecutor P.R. Dantani told Judicial Magistrate R.M. Bhatia at Kadi that one of the newly arrested men had tried to build a time bomb, and that bomb-making material and Urdu JeM literature were yet to be recovered. The ATS written account says the accused sourced potassium nitrate, sulphur, and charcoal, and made eight separate attempts between 2023 and February 2026 to study timers and blast methods.

Most of that second group were aged 20 to 24, several of them described as madrasa students. The Mahim accused is 33, working a bike-taxi and a perfume stall. No public briefing has tied his phone to Patan, Dewas, or the Gujarati tanzeem.

The Rapido Shifts Were the Cover

ATS officers said Akhtar used the Rapido riding and the perfume sales as cover while he pushed a radical line online. The jobs themselves were in the open. He sold perfume in Mahim and took bike-taxi fares, work that puts a face on a street all day.

A gig shift is a poor hiding place and a good explanation for why a man with hostile posts can look, at street level, like any other rider. Treating the job as proof of a sleeper role goes further than the FIR. The complaint describes comments, two audio files, and a claimed intelligence contact. It does not describe explosives, cash, or a handler’s order recovered from a helmet bag.

Rapido has not issued a public note on the arrest. Nothing in the police account says the company knew of the posts or the Telegram group. The workplace is how the suspect earned money in Mahim, not a finding against the app.

Investigators Have Not Confirmed a Handler

The JeM headline rests on three claims that are still in play: the Azhar clips in a three-person group, a subscription to a channel ATS called Pakistan-backed, and contact with a Pakistani intelligence operative. Pawar said that last input is being verified. Until that check is done, the foreign-handler story is an intelligence lead, not a proved count.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The arrest: Kalachowki ATS detained Akhtar on 21 October near Mahim Metro station; Mahim police arrested him on 22 October and he remains in police custody.
• The charge: Section 196(1) BNS, promoting enmity, with a maximum of three years, a fine, or both.
• The digital file: 39 screenshots, comments from 4 May to 18 October, an 8 September Instagram remark under a prime minister security story, and two Azhar audios dated 1 June in a three-member Telegram group he administered.

Those points are in the complaint and in Pawar’s briefing. The rest is still open, including whether UAPA sections get added if the intelligence lead hardens.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The handler: Contact with a Pakistani intelligence operative, flagged on 21 October, not yet verified by Mahim police.
• The other two: Names, locations, and roles of the other members of the Telegram group.
• The channel: Whether IBN-e-Qasim is a JeM organ or simply a channel ATS labelled extremist.
• A wider cell: Any tie to the 13 people held in Gujarat in July, or to other Maharashtra cases.

Forensic work on the phone is still under way. Police are asking whether he received instructions from across the border. A chargesheet, not a briefing, will show if this stays an enmity case or becomes a UAPA prosecution.