Around 60 locations across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala are being searched by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in a massive crackdown on suspects having links with the banned terror outfit ISIS, sources have said.
Searches are being carried out in connection with last year’s blasts in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore and Karnataka’s Mangaluru, they said.
The blast in Coimbatore killed Jameza Mubin last year in October, who was questioned by the central anti-terror agency over alleged ISIS links in 2019, police said.
Mubin was driving a car with two open cylinders and one of them exploded, police said. A search of his house later led to the recovery of “low-intensive explosive material”.
Those seemed to be meant for “future plans”, Tamil Nadu police chief C Sylendra Babu had said.
NIA had taken over the November 19 Mangaluru auto-rickshaw blast that injured two people – including the prime suspect – last year in December.
Mohammad Shareeq, who allegedly had tried to make a bomb in September too, was carrying a low-intensity Improvised Explosive device or IED when it exploded. A burnt pressure cooker fitted with batteries was found inside the auto
Karnataka police had said that the blast was not accidental but an “act of terror with the intention to cause serious damage.”
A group that calls itself ‘Islamic Resistance Council’ had claimed the responsibility of the auto-rickshaw blast.
Typed in English and printed with Shareeq’s photo, the letter said he “attempted to attack the Hindutva Temple in Kadri, a bastion of the Saffron terrorists in Mangalore”.
Intelligence sources say Shareeq had visited forest areas in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala in November with the intention to establish the ISIS terror module in South India
