The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday, January 28, filed a chargesheet against eight accused persons in the ISIS Kerala terror module case. The accused have been identified as Deepthi Marla alias Maryam, Mohammed Waqar Lone alias Wilson Kashmiri, Mizha Siddeeque, Shifa Haris alias Ayesha, Obaid Hamid Matta, Madesh Shankar alias Abdullah, Ammar Abdul Rahiman and Muzamil Hassan Bhat.

The probe agency said that it had registered the case in March 2021 pertaining to alleged terrorist activities of Mohammed Ameen alias Abu Yahya, a resident of Kerala, and his associates, who were accused of running various propaganda channels on social media such as Telegram, Hoop and Instagram to recruit people into the ISIS.

Earlier, the NIA had filed a chargesheet against three accused persons in the same case on September 8, 2021. According to the NIA, the investigation has revealed that all the eight accused persons chargesheeted on Friday were affiliated to ISIS. It further said the accused were involved in radicalising and recruiting people for ISIS, organising terror funds and grooming like-minded gullible Muslim youth using different secured social media platforms.

Earlier on January 3, the NIA and Kerala Police in a joint operation had arrested a suspected woman ISIS operative, Mundadiguttu Sadananda Marla Deepthi Marla alias Maryam, a resident of Mangaluru. In 2021, the NIA had arrested a man from Karnataka Bhatkal in connection with the case, who was accused of creating multiple social media accounts to chat with and radicalise youth. Four other people, who were associates of Mohammed Ameen, were arrested after the NIA conducted raids at Jammu and Kashmir, Bengaluru and Mangaluru. During the raids, the NIA during the searches seized several digital devices including laptops, mobile phones, hard disk drives, pen drives, multiple SIM cards of different service providers, and incriminating documents.