NIA nabs four ISIS suspects

Hyderabad: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday conducted search operations on the residences of the Abu Dhabi module of ISIS associates. Based on reliable information, searches were carried out at three locations in Hyderabad and one in Wardha.

During the searches, a number of digital devices including 13 mobile phones, 11 SIM cards, one iPad, two laptops, one external hard disk, six pendrives, six SD cards and three walkie-talkie sets and a few documents have been seized from the houses of the suspects.

NIA after the raids took four suspects under their custody. The searches were carried out after investigators found that the persons from Hyderabad were in touch with the two of the arrested, Mohammed Abdullah Basith and Mohammed Abdul Qhadeer, in ISIS case of Abu Dhabi module.

Abdul Basith was arrested by NIA in 2018 along with another accused Abdul Qhadeer charge-sheeted by the agency at Patiala House court of Delhi.

According to sources, one of the four suspected persons is Taha while the details of the other three are yet to be confirmed. The NIA team has detained Taha from Kings' Colony, Shastripuram under Mailardevpally police station limits after questioning him and his wife for almost seven hours.

The team of four persons, including a woman officer reached the house of Taha, in the wee hours of Friday to question him. Taha is the associate of the alleged terror suspect Abdullah Basith, who was charge-sheeted by the agency in the Abu Dhabi ISIS module case.

Reportedly, two years ago four men, including Basith had conspired to massive destruction in Delhi. The trio had also planned to kill an RSS leader in Delhi and the plan was made in Hyderabad, which is their base centre.

Also, the young people were provided guns, chemicals and money by ISIS to carry out ISIS orders. During that time Basith and his team landed in Delhi for assassinating the RSS leader.

But Basith returned to Hyderabad with no plan of execution and later police arrested three men in Delhi and two in Hyderabad along with Basith in the case of having connections with ISIS.

According to official press note of NIA, about two months ago, the agency filed a supplementary charge sheet on February 7, 2019 in the Special NIA Court against accused Abdullah Basith and Abdul Qhadeer under sections 120B, 201 of IPC and section 17, 18, 38, 39 and 40 of UAPA.

In this case, also NIA had earlier filed a charge sheet on July 20, 2016 against three accused persons.

NIA said accused Abdullah Basith was continuously making efforts to propagate the ideology of ISIS in India for which he entered into a conspiracy with ISIS handlers and his associates.

He and his associates were involved in identifying, motivating, radicalising the gullible Muslim youths to join hands with him in the conspiracy.

Accused Abdul Qhadeer came under the influence of Basith because of their common intention to propagate the ideology of ISIS in India for which they actively started meeting the other gang members.

The recovery of explosive substances from their possession establishes their intention to fabricate an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

It is learnt that these search operations were followed by detention of these terrorists and after new names emerged during the investigation. Taha and other three were taken to the NIA office in Madhapur for further interrogation.