Intelligence agencies in India are probing possible links between a dozen men from Tamil Nadu and Kerala to Zaharan Hashim, the suspected mastermind behind the recent Easter blasts in Sri Lanka.
The probe was launched after Hashim’s call records revealed numbers of the suspected men in India, a security official told The Indian Express.
The official also said that Hashim is believed to have spent close to three months in India and made calls to the numbers in question in this period.
One Held After NIA Searches
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), meanwhile, arrested an alleged Islamic State (IS) sympathiser Riyas Aboobacker in connection with the Kasaragod ISIS terror module case in Kerala on Monday, 29 April. He was allegedly planning a suicide attack in the State.
Riyas has been remanded to judicial custody till 29 May. The case was registered in July 2016, after 15 youths had disappeared from Kasaragod with suspected links to Islamic State.
The agency also said that Riyas followed videos and speeches of Hashim, the mastermind of the Easter attacks.
NIA had arrested Riyas as part of searches conducted on Sunday at three places in Kerala, as part of its investigation into the ISIS Kasargod module case.
The probe agency said in a statement that it carried out the searches at the houses of three suspects – two in Kasaragod and one in Palakkad.
“These persons are suspected to have links with some of the accused persons in the said case who had exited India to join the proscribed terrorist organisation ISIS.”NIA statement, as quoted by PTI
Possible Links to Sri Lanka Attack
According to sources quoted by The Times of India, the NIA questioned the suspects not only because they were in touch with Abdul Rashid Abdulla, the absconding leader of the IS Kasargod module but also to establish any possible link between the module to recent attacks in Sri Lanka.
The cross-straits connections of the National Thowheed Jamaat, which has been named in the Sri Lanka bombings, are being probed, the report added.
It said that mobile phones, SIM cards, memory cards, pen drives, diaries with handwritten notes in Arabic and Malayalam, DVDs and books of controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, besides untitled DVDs, CDs with religious speeches, books of Syed Kutheb were seized during the searches.
"Digital devices will be forensically examined and analysed," the agency said.
An NIA officer was quoted in The Times of India report as saying: “We are questioning the three suspects, whom we had been tracking for some time as they were in touch with Abdulla and other members of the Kasargod module based in Afghanistan. We want to know if similar videos of Hashim were shared with them and if there is any direct link between IS modules from India and the Sri Lanka bombers.”
(With inputs from The Indian Express, ANI, The Times of India and PTI)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)