NIA arrests two members of ISIS sleeper cell's module from Mumbai airport

Mumbai: In a major swoop, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested two persons who were part of a sleeper module of ISIS when they landed at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport from Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.

The two accused, Abdullah Faiyaz Shaikh alias Diaperwala and Talha Khan, were wanted in a 2023 case related to fabrication and testing of IEDs in Pune - and carried a reward of Rs three lakh on their head. 

After they landed at the Mumbai Airport, they were intercepted by the Bureau of Immigration. 

The NIA team immediately swung into action, took them into custody and arrested them. 

“The two accused had been on the run for the past over two years and also had non-bailable warrants issued against them by the NIA Special Court in Mumbai. NIA had also declared a cash reward of Rs. 3 lakh each for information on the two accused,” NIA officials said on Saturday. 

The case RC-05/2023/NIA/MUM relates to a criminal conspiracy by the duo, along with eight other ISIS Pune sleeper module members, who were earlier arrested and are in judicial custody. 

“They had conspired  to commit terrorist acts with the aim to disturb India’s peace and communal harmony by waging a war against the Government of India in furtherance of the ISIS agenda to establish Islamic rule in the country through violence and terror,” the officials said. 

These two men, already chargesheeted along with the other arrested accused, had been engaged in assembling IEDs from a house rented by Abdullah Faiyaz Shaikh in Kondhwa in Pune. 

During the 2022-2023 period, they had also organised and participated in a bomb making and training workshop, besides carrying out a controlled explosion to test an IED fabricated by them, at these premises.  

The NIA, which has been actively investigating the activities of ISIS in India in a bid to foil its violent and nefarious anti-India terrorist plans, had previously chargesheeted all the 10 accused in the case under various sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Explosive Substances Act, Arms Act and Indian Penal Code. . 

Besides Abdullah Faiyaz Shaikh and Talha Khan, the others arrested  earlier in the case are identified as Mohammed Imran Khan, Mohammed Yunus Saki, Abdul Kadir Pathan, Simab Nasiruddin Kazi, Zulfikar Ali Barodawala, Shamil Nachan, Akif Nachan and Shahnawaz Alam.