Ahmedabad, Jul 3: Gujarat's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has arrested eight alleged members of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), who were conspiring to establish a network of the Pakistan-based banned terror outfit in the state, officials said on Friday.

The ATS nabbed the individuals, two of them aged 18 and 19, from various districts of the state as well as adjoining Madhya Pradesh, on Thursday, they said, adding Gujarati translation of a book written by JeM founder Masood Azhar was among the materials seized from them.

Police said the accused were working to establish an active terror network of JeM in Gujarat, which shares land and sea border with Pakistan, and had formed an organisation in the western state to carry out their activities.

Seven of them were arrested from Gujarat and one from Madhya Pradesh. They were produced in a court in Kadi town of Mehsana district and remanded to ATS custody for 14 days, Assistant Public Prosecutor B H Prajapati said.

"Eight members of JeM were arrested from different places. The accused had formed a JeM-linked organisation in Gujarat under the name Darul Islam Gujarat Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)," ATS Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Sunil Joshi told reporters.

Acting on a tip-off, five special ATS teams, in coordination with police in Banaskantha, Mehsana, Navsari and Patan districts of Gujarat and Dewas in Madhya Pradesh, conducted simultaneous raids across multiple locations.

The ATS alleged that the accused were encouraging people in their respective areas to join JeM and remained in contact with two Pakistani handlers identified as Abdullah and Mohammad Umar.

The arrested men were identified by the ATS as Ahmed Abdullah Gajiwala (19), Mudassir Abdullah Ghaziwala (22) and Ibrahim Mohammad Husen Ghagha (30), all residents of Banaskantha district; Zakariya Durani Mohammad Ammar Ghagha (21), Mufti Faujan Ismail Dauwa (40) and Mohammad Amin Shera (21), all residents of Patan district; Mohammad Abdul Rahman Savdi (22), a resident of Navsari district; and Bilal Durani Mohammad Ammar Ghagha (18), a resident of Dewas in Madhya Pradesh.

"Ahmed and Ibrahim were initially detained near a highway on the Mehsana-Banaskantha. Based on the information provided by them, the remaining accused, who were already identified, were subsequently arrested," Joshi said.

"The accused received Rs 3 lakh in funding from JeM, a portion of which was allegedly used to purchase a second-hand car that had not yet been transferred into any member's name," the IPS officer stated.

Investigators also noted that the group was translating JeM literature into Gujarati to facilitate the spread of the outfit's jihadi ideology, the DIG Joshi maintained.

"Gujarati translation of Masood Azhar's book 'Dars-e-Jihad', allegedly prepared by Ibrahim and Zakariya, was among the seized materials," Joshi said.

According to an official release, the NordLocker application found on Ibrahim's mobile phone contained around 255 files, including books, speeches, audio recordings, videos, photographs and JeM flags related to jihad.

The ATS also recovered two books authored by Azhar and printed in Pakistan, along with several other publications related to jihad, said the release.

According to the officials, the ATS teams seized eight typed letters in Urdu addressed to the JeM chief, in which the accused allegedly expressed their intention to join the terrorist organisation. Photographs of handwritten Urdu pages were also recovered.

The accused allegedly met a Kashmiri individual two to three months ago, the ATS said.

Police have registered a case against the eight accused under sections 13 (punishment for unlawful activities), 17 (raising funds for terrorist acts), 18 (conspiracy), 38 (membership of a terrorist organisation) and 39 (support to a terrorist organisation) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, an anti-terror law.

The accused have also been booked under sections 148 (conspiracy to commit offences punishable under Section 147) and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Section 147 of the BNS pertains to waging war, attempting to wage war, or abetting the waging of war against the Government of India, officials said.