CHENNAI: In a joint operation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Counter Intelligence Cell sleuths of Telangana and a CID special investigation division team on Monday apprehended four terror suspects inspired by al-Qaida from hideouts in Chennai and Madurai who had planned to target at least 22 VVIPs including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Investigators, who seized explosive materials from their hideouts, said the suspects were responsible for five blasts in courts across south India. NIA sleuths on Monday announced the arrest of three offenders in Madurai and Chennai, while examining another suspect.The gang leader, who investigators arrested, is Dawood Suleiman , 23, a TCS software engineer from Karimsa Pallivasal in Madurai who lived in Thiruvanmiyur in Chennai. They identified the others as Abbas Ali, 27, a house painter from Ismailpuram in Madurai, and Samsum Karim Raja, a BCom graduate with a chicken shop in Madurai. Two suspects escaped during the Madurai raid.Investigating officers said the suspects, part of a group that called itself ' The Base Movement of al-Qaida ', were former members of alUmmah, an organisation TN had banned in 1998.The suspects set off the first explosion in a parking lot in a district court complex in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, on April 7. The group was then involved in a blast in a car park at a chief judicial magistrate's court at in Kollam, Kerala, on June 15, followed by an explosion in a court complex in Mysuru, Karnataka, on August 1. The outfit then triggered another blast in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, on September 12. On November 1, a blast was reported in the toilet of a judicial magistrate's court at Malappuram in Kerala."They were inspired by al-Qaida activities in the Gulf countries," an investigating officer said. "After the Nellore and Malappuram blasts, police found that they had left behind propaganda material for `The Base Movement' at the crime scenes on pen drives and pamphlets."NIA officers also nabbed another suspect M Ayub Ali , 25, a native of Island Nagar in Madurai. He works as a public liaison officer for a hearing aid company in Madurai. NIA officials in their release said they have seized certain digital devices like cellphones and hard discs from them. The officers will produce the arrested suspects before local courts in Chennai and Madurai to seek transit remand to take them to the NIA special court in Bengaluru, where an NIA case is registered in the Mysuru blast."The city police assisted the NIA team in nabbing the suspects," Madurai commissioner of police Shailesh Kumar Yadav said. The NIA began the probe after Naina Mohammed, Abbas Ali's father, filed a police complaint that some people had taken his son into custody and he did not return home.