Amit Shah says agencies dismantled an ISI-backed network after 253 detentions in 14 states

The Union home ministry said on Monday that security agencies had dismantled the Shahzad Bhatti Network, a Pakistan-based syndicate it describes as backed by the ISI. Coordinated raids on 12 August led to 253 detentions across 14 states, more than 80 FIRs, and over 200 arrests, according to the ministry and Home Minister Amit Shah.

Shah posted that the operation had "thwarted its plans for subversive attacks" around Independence Day. Recoveries listed by him and the ministry include IEDs, grenades with Pakistan Ordnance Factory markings, pistols, live cartridges, and CCTV cameras that investigators say were used for surveillance.

The Hindu reported the ministry's account of the network: grenade attacks, IED blasts, petrol-bomb incidents, and targeted killings. Investigators said local operatives were paid to recce police stations, defence sites and religious places. The Times of India, working from the same official line, said Bhatti recruits online and then uses people for reconnaissance, moving arms, or carrying out attacks. The NIA has previously linked the syndicate to a November 2025 grenade attack on the Sirsa women police station in Haryana.

The detentions were heaviest in Uttar Pradesh (62), Haryana (52), Delhi (51) and Punjab (44). Cases have been registered under UAPA, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Arms Act, NDPS and the Explosive Substances Act. Fresh FIRs were filed in Delhi and Karnataka.

This is the government telling the country, three days after Independence Day, that a cross-border recruitment pipeline was taken apart in time. The numbers are large, and they are spread out: 14 states, not one pocket. If the official account holds, the story is less about a single cell and more about how cheap it has become to find people online and point them at a local target.

I would still treat the language carefully. "Dismantled" and "destroyed" are the home minister's words, posted on X, and the ministry statement tracks them. We do not yet have independent confirmation of how much of the network is actually gone, or how many of the 253 detentions will survive as charges. The Sirsa case is the one prior incident the NIA has put on the record.

The cases now sit with state police and central agencies. More than 80 FIRs is a lot of paperwork and a lot of remand. Whether this becomes a single NIA case or stays scattered will tell you how seriously Delhi wants to own it. Bhatti himself is in Pakistan, on social media, and not in anyone's custody here.