The National Investigation Agency has carried out searches at seven locations in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu in connection with its probe into an ISIS module headed by Mohammed Azarudeen, a Facebook friend of Sri Lankan suicide bomber Zahran Hashim, officials said.
During the searches, the agency seized 14 mobile phones, 29 SIM cards, 10 pen drives, three laptops, six memory cards, four hard disc drives, an internet dongle and 13 CDs/DVDs, besides one dagger, an electric baton, 300 air-gun pellets and a large number of incriminating documents, the NIA said in a statement.
A few pamphlets of Popular Front of India and Social Democratic Party of India, both under the scanner of security agencies, have also been seized from the houses and workplaces of the accused persons, it said.
Based on the recoveries, the agency has started questioning the accused about the material, it added.
A case was registered on May 30 this year against the module allegedly led by 32-year-old Mohammed Azarudeen of Coimbatore and five other residents of the city.
The agency had received the information that the accused persons and their associates were allegedly propagating the ideology of proscribed terrorist organisation ISIS Daish on social media with the intention of recruiting vulnerable youth into the group for carrying out terrorist attacks in south India, especially in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the NIA said.
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It alleged that Azarudeen was the leader of the module and maintained a Facebook page named "KhilafahGFX" through which he had been propagating the ideology of the banned West Asian terror group.
The NIA has alleged that Azarudeen has been a facebook friend of Hashim.