NIA raids over half dozen locations in Bengaluru in terror conspiracy case

BENGALURU: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday conducted searches in over half a dozen locations in Bengaluru in a terror conspiracy case.

Multiple NIA teams raided various locations in Bengaluru in close coordination with the state police force based on specific inputs.

The raids are still underway at the premises of suspects who have terror links and are operating at the direction of their foreign handlers. Besides, the suspects had been actively involved in various terrorist activities.

The move comes days after the NIA, in a massive crackdown on ISIS, arrested 15 operatives of the banned terror outfit on December 9 during multiple and widespread raids across Maharashtra and Karnataka.

In the case, the NIA teams swooped down on as many as 44 locations in Padgha-Borivali, Thane, Mira Road, Pune in Maharashtra, and Bengaluru in Karnataka and apprehended the 15 accused for promoting terror and terror-related acts and activities of the proscribed organization

Huge amounts of unaccounted cash, firearms, sharp-edged weapons, incriminating documents, smartphones and other digital devices were seized during the raids, conducted as part of the NIA's ongoing efforts to disrupt and demolish the attempts of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to carry out violent acts of terror and take innocent lives.

NIA investigations have further revealed in the case that the accused, all members of the ISIS Maharashtra module, were operating from Padgha-Borivali, where they had hatched the conspiracy to spread terror and carry out acts of violence across India. Pursuing the path of violent Jihad, Khilafat, and ISIS the accused had aimed to disturb the peace and communal harmony of the country and to wage a war against the government of India.

Initial investigations have revealed that the arrested accused had self-declared the village of Padgha in rural Thane as a 'liberated zone' and as 'Al-Sham'. They were motivating impressionable Muslim youth to relocate to Padgha from their place of residence to strengthen the Padgha base.

Saqib Nachan, the main accused and the leader and head of the ISIS module was also administering the 'bayath' (oath of allegiance to the Khalifa of ISIS ) to the persons joining the proscribed organisation.

ISIS is a Global Terror Organisation (GTG), also known as Islamic State (IS), Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), Daish, Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), ISIS Wilayat Khorasan, Islamic State of Iraq and Sham Khorasan (ISIS-K). The outfit has been spreading its terror network in India by putting in place localised ISIS modules and cells in various states of the country.

NIA has, in recent months, also conducted large-scale raids and busted different ISIS modules by arresting several terror operatives in the ISIS terror conspiracy case in a bid to scuttle the organisation's heinous and violent anti-India agenda.

As part of its efforts towards that end, the agency registered a case against the ISIS Maharashtra module earlier this year and has, since then, undertaken strong and concerted actions to destroy the various ISIS modules and networks operating across the country.