india

Updated: Oct 31, 2019 17:06 IST

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) carried out raids at multiple locations in Tamil Nadu in a crackdown on an Islamic State module. The raids took place in Coimbatore, Nagapattinam, Sivaganga, Trichy and Thoothukkudi districts.

The central probe agency said the raids were conducted on associates of the six men arrested in February 2019 for conspiring to kill Hindu activists in Coimbatore. “Two laptops, eight mobile phones, five SIM cards, one SD card and documents were seized during the searches,” said a statement by the NIA.

NIA officials also questioned the suspects about their association with the charge-sheeted persons.

The NIA has been conducting raids in Coimbatore over the past few months. Last week too, the central probe agency said it had recovered incriminating documents during a raid in the city.

The Coimbatore module was busted in September 2018 and it was during interrogation of the terror suspects that intelligence agencies got clues that Maulvi Zahran bin Hashim, a Sri Lanka-based radical Islamic preacher, was preparing for major attacks. Indian agencies did alert Sri Lankan authorities several times.

On April 21, over 250 people were killed when suicide bombers, including Hashim, blew themselves up in several Sri Lankan cities on Easter Sunday.

In December last year, the NIA had found videos of National Thowheed Jama’at (NTJ) leader Hashim while probing the Islamic State Coimbatore module. Investigators had said that in the videos Hashim exhorted Muslim youth from Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala to establish an Islamic rule in the region.