JOIN USNIA conducts raids across Kashmir in ISIS module case
The National investigation agency (NIA) swooped down in Kashmir on Sunday and carried out multiple raids in connection with an alleged conspiracy of the international terrorist organisation ISIS to radicalise and recruit youth to wage war against India.
A spokesperson of the NIA said simultaneous searches were conducted in Srinagar and Anantnag at seven locations in connection with RC 14/2021/NIA/DLI.
“The case was registered by NIA on 29.06.2021 in connection with the conspiracy of the proscribed terrorist organisation ISIS to radicalise and recruit impressionable youth in India to wage violent jihad against the Indian State. In order to execute its nefarious plan, an organised campaign has been launched over the cyberspace which is supplemented by on-ground terror financing activities,” he said.
The initial investigation by the NIA has revealed that the ISIS terrorists operating from various conflict zones along with cadres in India, by assuming pseudo-online identities, have created a network wherein terror group’s propaganda material is disseminated for radicalising and recruiting members.
“In this connection, an India-Centric online propaganda magazine ‘the Voice of Hind’ (VOH) is published on monthly basis with an aim to incite and radicalise impressionable youth by projecting a skewed narrative of imagined injustices in India to arouse a feeling of alienation and communal hatred,” it added.
The NIA spokesperson said that searches in the case on Sunday in Kashmir led to the recovery and seizure of a large number of incriminating documents and digital devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, hard disks and T-Shirts with the ISIS logo.
Sources said the NIA sleuths, besides paramilitary CRPF and police, were accompanied by Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officials during the raids in Kashmir to bust the alleged ISIS module.
While several suspects are being questioned by the NIA, six people, including the chairman of ‘Siraj-ul-Uloom’ a religious seminary, Adnan Ahmad Nadvi, were arrested. The seminary is affiliated with an Islamic seminary in Uttar Pradesh.
The raids came a day after the J&K government sacked its 11 employees, including two sons of Pakistan-based Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin for their alleged involvement in “anti-national” and “terrorist-related” activities.
Since 2017, the NIA and the Enforcement Department (ED) have arrested more than three dozen people, including separatist leaders, businessmen and government employees, in the Valley in alleged terror funding cases. The investigative agencies have also interrogated several media persons in the valley.
On August 29, 2018, the probe agency had also arrested a deputy jail superintendent for allegedly hatching a conspiracy inside Central Prison, Srinagar to recruit youth into the militancy.