NIA conducts raids against Islamist terror group members in TN

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday conducted raids in Chennai and Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu against members of the Ansarulla terrorist group that seeks to establish Islamic rule in India.

In a press statement, the NIA said that the members of the group had conspired and conducted preparations to wage war against India by forming the terrorist gang Ansarulla.

“It has also been learnt that the accused persons and their associates had collected funds and made preparations to carry out terrorist attacks in India, with the intention of establishing Islamic rule in India,” read the statement.

The raids were conducted against Syed Bukhari, a resident of Chennai; Hassan Ali Yunusmaricar, a native of Nagapattinam; Mohammed Yusuffudeen Harish Mohamed, a native of Nagapattinam and others.

During searches at the house and office of Bukhari, Hassan Ali and Harish Mohammed, nine mobiles, 15 SIM cards, seven memory cards, three laptops, five hard discs, six pen drives, two tablets and three CDs/ DVDs, besides documents including magazines, banners, notices, posters and books were seized by the NIA.

The three accused are being questioned by the investigation agency.

The statement also said that a case has been registered under sections s 120B (Criminal conspiracy), 121A (Conspiracy to wage or attempting to wage war or abetting waging war against the Government of India) and 122 (Collecting arms with an intention to wage war against India) of IPC besides various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on July 9.

These searches come shortly after NIA conducted searches across over seven locations in June at the residences of youths suspected to be in contact with ISIS members. The NIA had booked six men for allegedly plotting a terror attack in south India. The agency had also arrested two persons -- Y Sheik Hidayathullah and Mohammed Azaruddin – after the searches in Coimbatore. Mohammed Azaruddin was allegedly the leader of a terror module and was running a Facebook page named ‘KhilafahGFX’ through which he was allegedly propagating the ideology of ISIS/Daish.

(With inputs from IANS)