Shahzad Bhatti Network added as 46th outfit on UAPA First Schedule

The Ministry of Home Affairs on 16 September added the Pakistan-based Shahzad Bhatti Network to the First Schedule of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. A gazette notification invoked Section 35(1)(a) of the 1967 law. The network is the 46th organisation on the list of designated terrorist groups.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced the listing on X. He said the group smuggled arms, explosives and narcotics across the border, pulled young people and petty criminals into terrorism, and published hateful digital content aimed at India’s democratic structure and communal peace. The notification itself described the objective as using “gullible youth and local criminals” for cross-border smuggling and terrorist acts that threaten internal security.

The legal effect is immediate. Membership, funding, recruitment and public support for a First Schedule organisation attract UAPA offences that sit above ordinary criminal charges. Cases already filed under the UAPA, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Arms Act, the Explosives Act, the Information Technology Act and the Prevention of Defacement of Property Act now sit against a designated outfit rather than a loosely described gang.

The listing follows a coordinated operation that began on 12 August across 14 states: Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat, Bihar, Karnataka, Telangana and Kerala. The Centre said 253 operatives were detained, more than 200 arrests were made and over 80 FIRs were registered. Fresh FIRs were also filed in Delhi and Karnataka. Investigators said weapons and explosives were flown in from Pakistan by drone and then moved through local handlers.

Uttar Pradesh was the first state to ask the Centre for a terrorist designation, after a July recommendation and talks with Delhi and other state forces. The National Investigation Agency had searched 18 locations in Punjab and Haryana in June for gangster-terror links tied to Bhatti. Officials describe Shahzad Bhatti as a Pakistani-origin gangster. Four Pakistan-based associates named in briefings are Abid Jatt, Ajmal Gujjar, Hunain Rana and Hasan Gujjar.

Agencies say the network assigned recruits to reconnaissance, surveillance, weapons transport and attack logistics, and that it worked with other banned outfits. The Independence Day calendar was cited as the near-term risk that drove the August sweep. Those operational claims sit in the notification and in Home Ministry briefings. They have not been tested in a completed trial for the organisation as a whole.

Designation does not by itself seize property in Pakistan. It does change the footing of prosecutions inside India, the treatment of bank accounts and phones tied to listed members, and the ability of state police to treat association as a standalone offence. It also puts the network on the same statutory schedule as groups that have been listed for years.

What remains open is the quality of the 80-plus FIRs once they reach trial, and whether the drone-supply account holds in court. The schedule entry is a political and legal fact as of 16 September. The evidence behind each arrest will be argued case by case.