NEW DELHI: The Islamic State’s Hyderabad module, guided by suspected Syria based member identified as ‘Amir’, had amassed sufficient high-grade explosive material to assemble 40-50 powerful bombs and they posed an “imminent” threat at the time of their detention. In fact, in a recent message to Amir, a member of the module had asked: “Maal tayyar ho gaya hai, ab kya karna hai? (Stuff, or explosives, are ready. What to do now?)”.

The NIA teams have recovered several hundred kgs and litres of explosive-making precursor chemicals like acetone, hydrogen peroxide, urea, sugar, mineral acid, ammonium nitrate, nitric acid, sulphuric acid, purchased and collected by the module over past four or five months. Investigators told TOI on Wednesday that this quantity was enough to make 40 to 50 potent IEDs.

Sources said the module, led by Mohammad Ibrahim Yazdani, had procured all ingredients, which were being assembled into IEDs by the expert bomb-maker among them, Abdullah Bin Ahmed. Amir, according to initial analysis by intelligence agencies, could be a nom de guerre for Islamic State’s top recruiter-cum-motivator in India — Shafi Armar, who goes by the name of Yousuf-al-Hindi in cyberspace. Al-Hindi was also behind the pan-India module busted by the NIA in January this year, which was led by Mumbaibased Muddabir Sheikh.

The NIA suspects some members of the module had conducted a recce at a famous Bhagyalakshmi temple situated at the base of Charminar in Hyderabad. They had also toured Anantapur (Andhra Pradesh) and Ajmer.

According to sources, two operatives of the Hyderabad module recently travelled to Nanded, Maharashtra, on a bike and bought two semi automatic 9mm pistols from a contact there. One Chinese made air-gun with telescopic sight and shooting practice target board has also been recovered by the NIA.

The five arrested members of Hyderabad module have been identified as “strikers” while those still under detention helped in logistics.



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