Terror threat over south India as the National Investigation Agency continues searches in ISIS recruitment

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday carried out searches at six locations in Tamil Nadu in connection with an alleged plot by an ISIS-inspired group to murder leaders of Hindu organisations.

According to PTI, Thursday’s searches were on the 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.

An NIA source quoted by IANS said that the anti-terror probe agency was carrying searches at six locations including two locations at Kovai beside one each in Elayangudi, Trichy, Kayalpattinam and Nagapattinam.

The central probe agency was alerted by the local police in July about the plot.

In September last year, a Special Investigation Unit of the Coimbatore police had foiled a plot by seven-members of an ISIS-inspired Islamic group in Tamil Nadu to murder Sampath, Hindu Munnani leader Mookambikai Mani and Sakthi Sena leader Anbu Mari.

Since then NIA has been working and gathering information in South India and looking into activities of suspected radical youths.

According to NIA officials, Tamil Nadu tops the list of Indian states where anti-terror agencies have unearthed modules of Salafi jihadi terrorist organization ISIS over a period of five years since 2014.

The NIA has claimed to have arrested 127 ISIS sympathisers from across India since 2014 and 33 were from Tamil Nadu.

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: The Statesman