National Investigation Agency team in Sri Lanka to investigate Islamic State related cases

A two-member team of India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials have arrived in Sri Lanka to probe two Islamic State (IS)-related cases, ANI reported.

The NIA team is in Colombo to find out any possible links between the terrorist modules and the terrorists involved in the deadly Easter Sunday bombings that killed more than 250 people.

A senior government official said the two-member NIA team was in Sri Lanka in connection with the two IS-related cases, registered by the agency in 2015 and 2018.

One of the cases was registered in October 2018 by NIA, which pertained to a “criminal conspiracy to kill some Hindu leaders of Coimbatore.” The other case was registered by NIA against an IS suspect Mohammad Naser in 2015.

Following the bombings, Indian agencies including the NIA, began cracking down on suspected IS sympathizers who may have been in touch with the suicide bomber Saharan Hashim while he was in India.

According to a report in Indian Express, investigations have found that before the bombings, Hashim had spent a few months in Kerala and Tamil Nadu and had met several young men.

Last year, the NIA had arrested a few men from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu for allegedly being members of Islamic State and from the phones of one of the accused, the NIA had recovered a provocative video of Hashim where he allegedly exhorts youth from south India to rise for the cause of Islam and hints at a big attack in the offing.

It was based on this information, which was further developed by the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), that Sri Lanka was given intelligence about the impending attack on churches and hotels.

Source: Colombo Page