The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has formally arrested two terrorists named Shoaib and Gul Navas from the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport on Monday evening. As per reports, Shoaib is a resident of Kannur in Kerala while Gul Navas is from UP. A special team of NIA had brought the two terrorists from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The special NIA team had taken them into custody with the help of Saudi authorities in Riyadh about 2 weeks ago.
As per reports, the Kerala native Shoaib is an accused in the 2008 Bengaluru serial blasts case and had been absconding since then. The terrorists had red-corner notices against them. Shoaib is accused of links with the terrorist group Indian Mujahideen.
The other terrorist named Gul Navas is reportedly an active member of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba. He is an accused in the Delhi blast case.
The two terrorists were reportedly brought to India after a lookout notice was issued against them in Riyadh.
Terrorists interrogated by RAW and other agencies
As per reports, the two arrested terrorists were interrogated for hours by RAW officials and other agencies. Shoaib will be taken to Bengaluru, while Gul Navas will be taken to Delhi for further action.
While Shoaib was interrogated at the NIA headquarters at Kochi, Gul Nawas was interrogated at the IB headquarters at Thiruvananthapuram.
Shoaib was involved in Bengaluru blasts
As per a report in Manorama, Kannur native Shoaib was one of the earliest members of the Indian Mujahideen terrorist group. Thadiyantavide Naseer, the founder of the Indian Mujahideen. Naseer has been arrested and in jail. Shoaib had escaped to Pakistan in 2014. He is the last accused in the blasts to be arrested. He had reportedly married in Pakistan and was even running a business. He was a frequent visitor to Riyadh. After gathering information on Shoaib, the NIA had coordinated with the Riyadh authorities to nab Shoaib.
Recent arrests by NIA in Kerala and Bengal
On Friday, the NIA had arrested three Al Qaeda terrorists named Iyakub Biswas, Murshid Hasan and Musharraf Hussain from Kerala’s Ernakulam. 6 more Al Qaeda terrorists named Najmus Sakib, Abu Sufiyan, Mainul Mondal, Leu Yean Ahmed, Al Mamun Kamal, Atitur Rehman were arrested from Bengal’s Murshidabad.