Meerut: Locals said they were asleep and felt as if an earthquake had hit them when an ATS squad led by IG Asim Arun broke into a building, Naaz Manzil, in Mohalla Khanqah of Deoband town in Saharanpur district late on Thursday night. Other than the two Kashmiri suspects, seven other students were also detained. According to police sources, four of them belong to Azamgarh, one is from Jaunpur while two others are one each from Bihar and Odisha.According to Gain Akhtar, brother of one of the detainees, “I am from Odisha and have a shop here. After we closed the shop and went off to sleep, a huge rattling sound jolted us out of our sleep. Initially we thought it was an earthquake but then realized someone was banging the front door. As we opened it, armed security personnel entered the building and broke open 3-4 other doors. They detained around a dozen students after handcuffing them.”The building where the raid was conducted is a private hostel where students enrolled in various madrassas of the town stay.Mehdi Hasan, one of the fellow hostellers, told TOI, “Seven other students who were detained have returned. All their belongings, including mobile phones, were also returned. No harm was done to them but they would not like to speak to anyone for now.”“Police team broke into the rooms of these boys around 2 am on Friday and whisked away four people,” said Mohamed Mushtaq of Azamgarh, who stays in the same hostel. Another hostel inmate, Mohammed Khadmi from Odisha, said his younger brother has also been detained by ATS. He said most hostel inmates work as small-time cloth merchants and tailors in Saharanpur area. However, a source privy to the probe said during raids some students tried to flee and were later caught.(With inputs from Pathikrit Chakraborty in Lucknow)

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