KOCHI: Suspected Islamic State operative Riyas Aboobacker alias Abu Dujana, arrested by National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the Kasaragod IS module case, was “mentally prepared” to carry out a suicide attack but was yet to acquire explosives, agency sources said on Tuesday.

They said he was in frequent contact with IS operatives who migrated to Afghanistan and Syria like Abdul Rashid, Ashfaq Majeed and Abdul Khayoom, who prepared him mentally for a suicide attack in the state. The agency is on the lookout for a resident of Kollam who is the fourth member of the module.

“He had agreed to con-duct the suicide attack but the location was not decided and explosives were not procured,” an officer said.

Aboobacker (29) was presented before the special court in Kochi on Tuesday and remanded in judicial custody till May 29. The NIA has filed a petition seeking his custody for five days, which judge K Sathyan has agreed to hear on Monday. NIA counsel Arjun Ambalapatta submitted before the court that Aboobacker, a resident of Kollengode in Palakkad , was an IS member and he was following the speeches of Sri Lankan bomber Zahran Hashim and Zakir Naik.

NIA sources said they were yet to decide on recording the arrest of the other two members of the cell, Ahamed Arafat and Aboobacker Siddique of Kasaragod. They were being quizzed at the Kochi NIA office for the past two days. All three were named accused numbers 18 to 20 in the 2015 case lodged after 15 persons from Kasaragod moved to Afghanistan and Syria. Eight of the 15 who left India have been killed, they added.

The agency has found they had unfollowed Hashim on social media soon after the Lanka blasts. The NIA had raided the residences of the accused on Sunday in the wake of the blasts and they were interrogated by a team headed by IG Alok Mittal at the Kochi office.

Read this report in Bengali

