india

Updated: Jul 15, 2019 00:40 IST

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday arrested two men from Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam district for allegedly conspiring to form a terror group in the state.

Hassan Ali, 28, and Harish Mohamed, 32, were arrested a day after a 14-member team of NIA officials conducted raids at four locations in Chennai and Nagapattinam and busted a gang which allegedly conspired, collected funds and made preparations to carry out terrorist attacks in India with the intention of establishing Islamic rule in the country.

In a press release, the NIA said the arrests were made on the basis of “incriminating facts revealed during the searches and subsequent investigation”. It added that Ali and Mohamed were produced in a special NIA court in Chennai and remanded in the agency’s custody until July 24.

Houses of Ali and Mohamed were among the places raided on Saturday.

“Syed Bukhari, resident of Chennai, Hassan Ali Yunusmaricar, native of Nagapattinam, Mohammed Yusuffudeen Harish Mohammed, native of Nagapattinam have been booked under relevant sections of IPC and sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, based on credible information received that the accused persons, while being within and beyond India, had conspired and conducted consequent preparations to wage war against the Government of India by forming the terrorist gang ,” the NIA had said in a statement.

“The accused and their aides have collected funds from foreign countries to wage the war in India to set Islamic rule here,” the NIA said in its statement.

The NIA said it recovered nine mobiles, 15 SIM cards, seven memory cards, three laptops, five hard discs, six pen drives, two tablets and three CDs/DVDs during the raids on Saturday.

“Also, the NIA has seized documents including magazines, banners, notices, posters and books,” NIA said in the statement.

The NIA is likely to conduct more search operations at other places over the next few days on the basis of information obtained from the accused.