NIA conducts raids in Hyderabad, takes 4 persons in custody in Islamic State module case

On Saturday, the premier investigative agency National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted searches in Telangana and Maharastra.

The searches were conducted on suspected Islamic State (IS) activists in Hyderabad and Wardha in an IS-related case.

NIA, which is investigating a 2016 Islamic State-related case called Abu Dhabi Module and in which two Hyderabad-based youth were arrested, conducted searches at three places in Hyderabad and one place in Wardha as part of the investigation.

During the searches, a number of digital devices including 13 mobile phones, 11 SIM cards, one iPad, two laptops, one external hard disk, six pen drives, six SD cards and three Kenwood walkie talkie sets along with other documents were seized.

The interrogation of the four suspects is going on.

Out of the four suspects, two hail from Maharashtra and presently are residing under Falaknuma police station limit of Hyderabad and Mailardevpalli police



station limit of Cyberabad, while another youth hails from Hyderabad residing in Shaheen Nagar police station area.

The linked accused in the case Mohammed Abdullah Basith was arrested in August, 2018, and earlier in February this year, he along with another accuse Abdul Qadeer was charge-sheeted by the agency at Patiala House court of Delhi.

Investigators have found that Mohammed Abdullah Basith had linked with the US-based Matin Azizi-Yarand who was arrested by the FBI in May, 2018, under the charges for planning a mass shooting.

Mohammed Abdullah Basith had tried twice to leave the country and join IS.

First was from Kolkata (2014) and the second time in 2015 when he was trying to travel to Kashmir from Nagpur airport. He was arrested by Telangana Police but soon after his release on bail, he again created an Instagram group in which IS sympathisers from Australia, thr US, and Khorasan (Afghanistan) were members.

Mohammed Abdullah Basith also created an Instagram group 'Musaib bhai', using which he searched for pro-IS groups.