The National Investigation Agency will now probe the three Kashmiri students who were arrested in Punjab last month for alleged links to a militant outfit, PTI reported on Saturday. The state government decided to hand over the case to the agency after discussions with the Union Home Ministry and to ensure a quicker and more effective investigation, said Punjab Director General of Police Suresh Arora.

“Given the inter-state and international ramifications of the case, the central and Punjab governments have decided to hand over the investigations to the NIA,” he said.

The students – Zahid Gulzar, Mohd Idriss Shah and Yusuf Rafiq Bhatt – were arrested in October from the hostel of CT Institute of Engineering Management and Technology on the outskirts of Jalandhar. The police recovered two weapons, including an assault rifle, and explosives from their possession.

The three of them are residents of Pulwama district in Kashmir and were allegedly associated with Kashmir-based militant outfit Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, which has links with the Jaish-e-Mohammed and is headed by Zakir Rashid Bhatt alias Zakir Mussa. According to police, Mussa was the mastermind behind attacks on Jalandhar’s Maqsudan police station in September.

Arora had said the Punjab Police was working closely with police in Jammu and Kashmir to find out more about the network built by these suspected militants in the two states. The arrests indicate that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency wants to fan militancy on India’s western border, he had claimed.

“The state government was also of the view that the growing attempts by Pakistan-based ISI and terror outfits and elements based abroad to revive terrorism in Punjab required strong and concerted efforts by the national agency, which has the mandate to investigate all over the country and even abroad,” Arora said.

The state and central governments had also taken note of another case in which the Punjab Police on November 5 arrested two Kashmiri students in connection with the attack on the Maqsudan police station.

Arora said the Punjab Police are monitoring the situation to prevent further attacks on police stations and security personnel in the state.