NIA raids in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore in crackdown on ISIS module

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is carrying out raids at multiple locations in Coimbatore in a crackdown on an Islamic State module in Tamil Nadu. An official familiar with the raids said they have found certain new clues in the ISIS Coimbatore case which are being verified. New agency PTI reported that Thursday’s searches were on premises of two people associated with the Coimbatore ISIS module. A five-member team carried out searches in the house of Nissar in GM Nagar and Sauridin in Lorrypet in the city, police said. The NIA has been conducting raids in Coimbatore over the past few months. Last week too, the central probe agency said it had recovered incriminating documents during a raid in the city. The terror module planned to target leaders of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP in south India. Six IS members were arrested and they have been charged by NIA. The Coimbatore module was busted in September 2018 and it was during interrogation of the terror suspects that intelligence agencies got clues that Maulvi Zahran bin Hashim, a Sri Lanka-based radical Islamic preacher, was preparing for major attacks. Indian agencies did alert Sri Lankan authorities several times. On April 21, over 250 people were killed when suicide bombers, including Hashim, blew themselves up in several Sri Lankan cities on Easter Sunday. In December last year, the NIA had found videos of National Thowheed Jama’at (NTJ) leader Hashim while probing the Islamic State Coimbatore module. Investigators had said that in the videos Hashim exhorted Muslim youth from Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala to establish an Islamic rule in the region. Source: Hindustan Times