ISIS module spread terror tentacles via WhatsApp mobile application

The mastermind behind the IS-inspired module that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) claimed to have busted on Sunday was allegedly operating from Qatar through a WhatsApp group, to keep in touch with other members of the group. The NIA believes that 30-year-old Manseed alias Omar Al Hindi, a native of Kerala and employed in Qatar, had devised plans to carry out terror attacks in India.
Manseed was on a short four-day visit to his native Kannur and had asked other members to come there for a meeting when the NIA sleuths were believed to have got a tip-off and acted swiftly to arrest him and five others.

The members of the module, who were residing in different places, had reached Kannur on October 1 for the meeting.

Though he was in Qatar, Mansheed was operating a WhatsApp group with him as the admin to keep in touch with other members of the module, sources said.

Interestingly, two of the seven arrested suspects were residing in Tamil Nadu. They were Swalih Mohammed alias Yousuf and Abu Basheer alias Rashid.

Mohammed, a native of Thrissur district in Kerala, was residing at M G R Nagar in Kottivakkam in Chennai with his family for the last two years. It is said that he married a woman residing in Chennai, after which he shifted to the city. He has a three-year-old child.

According to NIA sources, Mohammed studied only up to Class X and had completed a few computer courses. He was working in a tourist agency located on the Patullos Road here as an executive.

“Whoever who saw him would never imagine that he can be someone with terrorist links,” said M Gunasekaran, 55, in whose  house Mohammed’s family has been staying for the last three months.

After the news of Mohammed’s terror link spread, Gunasekaran  found it difficult to handle people who thronged the place. The sleuths from the NIA and police also inspected the house. The NIA officials seized phones, tablets and other things from the house.

After inspecting the place on Sunday, the officials, while leaving the place, had informed Gunasekaran about Mohammed’s arrest and instructed him to convey this to his wife only on Monday morning.

Source: /News India