New Delhi: 15 suspected ISIS operatives, who were part of the Maharashtra module of the terror outfit and declared a village in Maharashtra as a liberated zone, were arrested on Saturday following searches at 44 locations, including in Bengaluru.
The arrested include Saqib Nachan, the suspected leader and head of the Maharashtra module of the ISIS who along with others had declared Padgha in rural Thane as a “liberated zone’ and ‘Al Sham’. They were allegedly motivating Muslim youth to join them.
An NIA statement said searches were conducted in Padgha-Borivali, Thane, Mira Road and Pune in Maharashtra and Bengaluru in Karnataka early this morning.
Huge cash, firearms, sharp-edged weapons, smartphones and other digital devices were seized during the searches, which were part of the NIA’s “ongoing efforts to disrupt and demolish attempts of ISIS to carry out violent acts of terror and the taking of innocent lives”.
The NIA claimed that the arrested persons were in touch with their foreign handlers and had been “actively involved in various terrorist activities, including fabrication of IEDs, furthering the violent and destructive agenda of ISIS”.
The arrested people were allegedly operating from Padgha-Borivali where they “hatched the conspiracy to spread terror and carry out acts of violence across India”.
“Pursuing the path of violent jihad, Khilafat, ISIS etc, the accused had aimed to disturb the peace and communal harmony,” the NIA statement said.
The NIA has conducted large-scale raids and busted different ISIS modules by arresting several terror operatives in the ISIS terror conspiracy case in a bid to scuttle the “heinous and violent” anti-India agenda.
The agency registered a case to unearth the ISIS module in Maharashtra earlier this year. In July this year, around half-a-dozen suspected ISIS operatives were arrested.
(Published 09 December 2023, 03:29 IST)
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