A day after six youths, including one from Tamil Nadu, were arrested in Kerala for alleged links with the Islamic State (IS), the National Investigation Agency (NIA) picked up a man from Kadayanallur in Tirunelveli district in the early hours of Monday for suspected links with the international terror outfit.
NIA officers took into custody K. Subuhan Abdullah (35) from his father-in-law’s house at Kadayanallur around 4.30 a.m. He was immediately taken to an undisclosed destination for interrogation.
It is believed the arrest was made on the basis of the confession of the six suspects detained in Kerala.
On Sunday, acting on intelligence inputs gathered from Kerala, Delhi and Telangana, the NIA team conducted searches in Kozhikode and Kannur districts of Kerala and raided a hideout at the Kanakamala hilltop in Kannur district, where it arrested five persons.
A subsequent search at Kuttiyadi in Kozhikode district led to the detention of one more suspect.
The six arrested were identified as Manseed alias Omar (30), a resident of Kannur; Abu Basheer alias Rashid (29) from Coimbatore; Swalih Mohammed alias Yousuf (26) from Thrissur; Safwan (30) from Mallapuram; and Jasim (25) and Ramshad Nageelan Kandiyil alias Aaamu (24), both hailing from Kozhikode.
As the NIA officials managed to extract information about Subuhan’s close association with them, the special team from Kerala, led by DSP Mukherjee, raided his father-in-law’s house at Kadayanallur on Monday morning and arrested him.
A senior police officer privy to the detention said Subuhan had gone to Turkey via Saudi Arabia with an Indian passport, and worked closely with religious groups there.
“Even as he was about to be sent to Germany for a yet-to-be identified assignment, Subuhan lost his passport. After getting a temporary passport for him in Turkey, his friends sent him back to India,” he said.
