After Sri Lanka blasts, drive on to hunt down ‘sleeper cells’ in Kerala and Tamil Nadu

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Updated: Apr 26, 2019 20:42 IST

Kerala and Tamil Nadu police, in association with central agencies, have launched an operation in their states to look for possible “sleeper cells” and “sympathisers” of Islamic State and National Towheed Jama’at (NTJ), the two outfits linked to Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, a counter-terrorism official familiar with the developments said.

The IS has owned up the terror attacks in the island nation that killed more than 250 people. One of the attackers was identified as NTJ leader Maulvi Zahran Bin Hashim, who blew himself up at Shangri La hotel in Colombo on Sunday.

The operation has been launched in the two southern states to thwart any possible terror attacks, the official cited above added.

Investigators have found that Sri Lanka attack mastermind Hashim, a radical preacher, was in touch with some Tamil Nadu and Kerala-based people in a bid to create a separate “Islamic State confederation” in the region.

Six IS members from Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district, who according to a National Investigation Agency probe, were radicalised after watching Hashim’s videos, were arrested in September 2018.

Over half a dozen others from Kerala’s Palakkad, Kozhikode and other parts of the coastal state had travelled to Sri Lanka on different dates before finally shifting to Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, the official said.

The central agencies suspect there could be several other IS “sleeper cells” and “followers” in these two states who might have some information about Sri Lanka blasts, or were in touch with the attackers.

Kerala police chief Loknath Behera confirmed that the state police are assisting the central agencies in the operation. Tamil Nadu director general of police T K Rajendran refused to comment.

Conversations on social media, call records and statements of IS recruits arrested from these two states in the past are being analysed to look for clues. Majority of IS recruits, who either travelled to Syria or Afghanistan, were from Kerala, the official claimed.

Another official from the ministry of home affairs, who asked not to be named, said several rounds of meetings have also taken place between Research and Analysis Wing , Intelligence Bureau, NIA and other agencies to discuss the strategy on how to contain the threat.

The government has repeatedly asserted that IS has got “negligible” support from Indian Muslims while all the state police forces have worked in coordination for past four-five years to restrain the activities of global terror

outfit.

According to a second MHA official, countries such as Canada, Japan, Singapore, and Bangladesh have often approached Indian agencies seeking to emulate their approach on controlling the IS.

The Indian agencies are currently helping the Sri Lankan authorities informally in the blasts’ probe, and if requested, an NIA team could also be sent there, said the MHA official cited above.