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Out of the five men, four are from Siddhpur in Patan district. This takes the total arrests from the town to eight. The fifth suspect is from Banaskantha.

All five face charges of trying to carry out “test explosions” on at least eight occasions over the last three years.

Police identified the suspects from Siddhpur as Bilal Abid Shera, 24; Mohammad Ayyub Kadiwala, 22; Mohammad Ayyub Sunsara alias Mohammad Khali, 20 and Mohammad Hasan Hanif Kardiya alias Hasan Haiderpuri, 20. Shafi Raees Mukhi alias Shafi Chhapi, 21, is from Vadgam, Banaskantha.

The ATS said that the suspects had procured raw ingredients required for making gunpowder “through online shopping platforms and local markets.”

They had studied different methods of carrying bomb blasts, it said. Materials used for the preparation of an (improvised explosive device) IED were recovered from one Mohammad Amin Shera, who was arrested earlier, for examination during the investigation, the agency said.

The ATS alleged that Bilal Abid Shera gave a pen drive to Amin Shera that had “jihadi speeches, videos, and jihadi books of Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist Masood Azhar, which were subsequently printed from various locations”.

The Anti-Terrorist Squad said it recovered a JeM flag, a copy of books written by JeM founder Masood Azhar, a copy of a letter addressed to Azhar, and Rs 1.30 lakh in cash, suspected to be funds for terrorist activities, from the first group of accused.