New Delhi | The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday conducted searches at seven locations in Coimbatore in connection with a probe into the Islamic State module in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. During the searches, digital devices including 14 mobile phones, 29 SIM cards, 10 pen drives, 3 laptops, 6 memory cards, 4 hard disc drives, 1 internet dongle and 13 CDs besides one dagger, one electric baton, 300 air-gun pellets and a large no. of incriminating documents and few Popular Front of India (PFI) and SDMI pamphlets have been seized from the houses and work places of six accused persons namely Mohammed Azarudeen, Akram Sindhaa, Y Shiek Hidayathullah, Abubacker M, Sadham Hussain A and Ibrahim alias Shahin Shah, NIA said in a statement.
They are being questioned regarding the incriminating materials seized during the searches, the probe agency said. The prime accused Mohammed Azarudeen has been the leader of the module and has been maintaining the Facebook page named “Khilafah GFX”, through which he had been propagating the ideology of ISIS. “Mohammad Azarudeen has been a facebook friend of Sri Lankan suicide bomber Zahran Hashim and other members of the module have also been sharing radical contents attributed to Zahran Hashim, over the social media”, the probe agency officials said.
Accused Ibrahim alias Shahin Shah has been a close associate of arrested accused Riyas Abubacker who was a key conspirator of ISIS Kasaragod case and had planned to conduct terrorist attacks in Kerala, on behalf of the ISIS. The federal terror probe agency registered a case on May 30 against six accused Mohammed Azarudeen, Akram Sindhaa, Y Shiek Hidayathullah, Abubacker M, Sadham Hussain A and Ibrahim alias Shahin Shah on the specific information that they were propagating the ideology of proscribed terrorist organisation ISIS on social media with the intention of recruiting vulnerable youth into the ISIS for carrying out terrorist attacks in South India especially in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
