NIA says they have busted 'Base movement' that wanted to target PM and others

Five people have been arrested by the NIA since Monday.
NIA says they have busted 'Base movement' that wanted to target PM and others
NIA says they have busted 'Base movement' that wanted to target PM and others
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The National Investigative Agency has arrested two more persons in Madurai in connection with the bomb blasts at court complexes in Kollam and Malappuram. This takes the total number of arrests since Monday's joint operation to five. 

The NIA arrested Shamsudeen (25), who hails from Madurai along with Mohammed Ayub (25), a public liaison officer in Madurai.

On Monday, the NIA in a joint operation with the Tamil Nadu police and the Telangana police arrested three persons in connection with explosions at court premises in south India.

Those arrested reportedly planned to target 22 VIPs including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The three persons have been identified as Abbas Ali (27), who is painter from Madurai, Suleiman (23), who works at a software firm in Chennai and Samsum Karim Raja, a BCom graduate who runs a chicken broiler shop in Madurai.  The NIA claimed that Suleiman is the "main leader of the terrorist gang." 

The NIA suspect that they are part of the Base Movement, a mysterious organisation under investigation for blasts in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. The Base Movement has claimed responsibility for five blasts in court premises in Mysuru, Chittoor, Kollam, Nellore and Malappuram.

On November 1, a low-intensity blast took place at Kerala’s Malappuram District Collectorate.  At the time, the Kerala police found a letter warning of more attacks, along with the photograph of the deceased leader of the Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden at the blast site. The typewritten letter affixed with a map of India stated, “On September 28, Mohammed Akhlaq was killed by terrorist of India for eating beef.”

In the previous cases, a letter was sent to Chief Secretariat with the same map of India affixed with a picture of Osama used. In January 2006, a similar letter was sent to the French Consulate in Bengaluru. The third letter was sent to the Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes in Andhra’s Chittoor.  
An Indian Express report in August 2016 had said that investigators believe the proscribed Tamil Nadu terror outfit Al Ummah and Indian wing of the Al Qaeda had realigned itself as the Base Movement.
In August 2014, Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri had announced the launch of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) or "Jamaat Qaidat al-jihad fi’shibhi al-qarrat al-Hindiya".

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