Continuing with crackdown on ISIS terror modules in south Indian states, the NIA conducted raids in two places in Tamil Nadu. The raids were conducted at the houses of suspected ISIS terrorists in Thanjavur and Tiruchirapalli based on warrants issued by a NIA special court in Ernakulam. The raids were conducted in a case related to ISIS-inspired terror module which was registered in Coimbatore in May this year.
#Breaking | Multi-city raids conducted by NIA. ISIS suspect’s house raided in Tamil Nadu.
More details by TIMES NOW’s Shabbir. pic.twitter.com/O8bWOHyxoq
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) November 30, 2019
A case was registered against 6 persons for propagating ISIS ideology on internet and social media, as well as trying to recruit youths into ISIS and plotting terror attacks in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. They were also linked with Zahran Hashim, the Sri Lankan Easter bomber. Earlier the houses of all six were searched by NIA and several incriminating materials were recovered. Two arrests were made after those raids.
In today’s operations, the houses of Alavudeen in Thansavur and S Sarfudeen in Tiruchirapalli were raided by the agency. Several digital devices including two laptops, 6 mobile phones, 11 SIM cards, and other devices like pen drives, hard drives, CDs and DVDs along with documents were seized. An axe was also recovered from the suspects.
The seized items and documents will be submitted to the NIA special court, and will be subjected to forensic examination. The two suspects are being interrogated to ascertain their association with other persons already arrested for links with terrorism and also to know their link with ISIS inspired terror activities.
In September last year, a Special Investigation Unit of the Coimbatore police had foiled a plot by seven-members of an IS-inspired Islamic group in Tamil Nadu to murder Sampath, Hindu Munnani leader Mookambikai Mani and Sakthi Sena leader Anbu Mari.
Since then NIA has been working and collecting intelligence in various cities of south India and looking into activities of suspected radical youths.
The NIA officials stated that Tamil Nadu tops the list of Indian states where anti-terror agencies have unearthed modules of Salafi jihadi terrorist organization IS over a period of five years since 2014. The NIA has claimed to have arrested 127 IS sympathisers from across India since 2014 and 33 were from Tamil Nadu.
Lately, Coimbatore has become a hub of Islamic terror as in July the NIA had nabbed the Islamic state module conducting raids on several locations in the city. The arrested terror sympathisers were in touch with Zahran Hashim, the main accused in the Sri Lanka bombings, over Facebook.
