india

Updated: Jul 21, 2019 00:50 IST

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday carried out searches at 14 locations across Tamil Nadu as part of its probe into the “Ansarulla” terror module case, officials said.

The searches were conducted at five locations in Ramanathapuram district, two in Theni and one each in Chennai, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Thanjavur, Perambalur, Nagapattinam and Thiruvarur districts, an NIA release said. Most of these were at the residences of the 14 people arrested in the case after they were deported from Saudi Arabia last week.

“During the searches, a laptop, seven mobile phones, five SIM cards, three memory cards, one hard disk drive, two pen drives, one internet dongle, nine CDs/DVDs and about 50 documents have been seized,” the agency said.

The NIA said the case was registered based on credible information that the accused, owing allegiance to terrorist organisations Islamic State, al Qaeda and Students’ Islamic Movement of India, while being within and beyond India, had conspired and made preparations to wage war against the government by forming the terror outfit “Ansarulla”.

“The accused persons and their associates had collected funds and made preparations to carry out terrorist attacks in India, with the intention of establishing Islamic rule” in the country, it said.

They have been “actively recruiting” individuals and disseminating videos and other propaganda material exhorting supporters to conduct terrorist attacks, it said.

The NIA has arrested a total of 16 people in connection with the case. The searches come a day after a special NIA court granted the probe agency eight days’ custody of the 16 arrested.

(With agency inputs)