NIA tightens its noose around the Islamic State, arrest 3 operatives

Thiruvananthapuram, March 16: Taking action against the terrorist and its ongoing activities in the country, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested three Islamic State (IS) operatives persons in Kerala. This comes during the searches conducted by NIA at 11 locations in Kerala, Karnataka, and Delhi.

 

 

Three accused, identified as, Ameen and his associates Mushab Anavar and Dr. Rahees Rashid have been arrested after preliminary examination. Apart from this, NIA also recovered several digital devices including laptops, mobiles, hard disk drives, pen drives, multiple SIM cards of different service providers. Moreover, various incriminating documents were seized during the searches. The seized material will be sent for forensic examination.

 

As per the NIA, this group has been running various ISIS propaganda channels on different social media platforms such as Telegram, Hoop, and Instagram for propagating the violent Jihadi ideology of ISIS and radicalizing and recruiting new members to this ISIS module.

 

"The group of radicalised individuals under the leadership of Ameen owning allegiance to proscribed terrorist organisation IS had identified certain individuals in Kerala and Karnataka for targeted killing. They had also planned to undertake `Hijrat` (religious migration) to Jammu and Kashmir for engaging in terrorist acts," NIA's statement further said.

 

The NIA had registered a case against seven known and other unnamed persons under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the UA (P) Act on March 5, 2021.

 

"Further, Mohammed Ameen had traveled to J&K immediately after his return to India from Bahrain in March 2020 and had been camping in Delhi for last two months for establishing a connection with J&K based operatives having allegiance to ISIS," it said.

 

Simultaneous searches were carried out at 11 locations including eight locations in Kerala spread over districts of Kannur, Mallapuram, Kollam, and Kasargod, two locations in Bengaluru and one in Delhi.

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