NIA raids 7 places in Coimbatore to bust IS cell

NEW DELHI : The NIA on Wednesday raided seven locations in Coimbatore in connection with a new IS module whose leader Mohammad Azarudeen is a 'Facebook friend' of Zahran Hashim, the Sri Lankan mastermind of the Easter Sunday bombings.
The National Investigation Authority had registered a case against Azarudeen on May 30 along with those against Akram Sindhaa, Y Shiek Hidayathullah, Abubacker M, Sadham Hussain A, Ibrahim alias Shahin Shah, all from Coimbatore.These persons and their associates have been accused of propagating IS ideology on social media to recruit youth for terrorist attacks in south India, especially Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
During searches at houses and workplaces of the accused, digital devices, including 14 mobile phones, 29 SIM cards, 10 pendrives, three laptops, six memory cards, four hard disc drives, one internet dongle and 13 CDs/ DVDs besides one dagger, one electric baton, 300 air-gun pellets and a large number of "incriminating documents" and a few Popular Front of India pamphlets were seized.
The module came under the radar following heightened alert after the Sri Lanka bombings. Kerala has been a source of several IS recruits and the ideological links between the National Towheed Jamaat and some groups in Tamil Nadu have been under scanner. The IS module seems to have been radicalised and saw Hashim as a jihadi role model.
Prime accused Azarudeen, a tour and travel agency operator, has been identified as leader of the module. He was maintaining a Facebook page named 'KhilafahGFX', through which he allegedly propagated IS ideology, and was a Facebook 'friend' of Hashim. NIA sources maintained that while he was inspired by Hashim, so far there is nothing linking him to the April 21 bombings in Sri Lanka.
While Azarudeen was arrested on Wednesday, other five accused were detained and are being questioned on the materials seized in the raids, said an NIA officer.
Accused Ibrahim @ Shahin Shah (A-6), NIA said, has been a close associate of arrested accused Riyas Abubacker (A-18) in IS Kasaragod case.
Abubacker, who NIA says had plans to conduct terror attacks in Kerala on behalf of IS, has relatives in Coimbatore and made multiple visits to the city.