The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the suspected Coimbatore IS module case conducted searches at the houses of two persons at Ukkadam in the city early on Thursday.
Houses of a 22-year-old man from G.M. Nagar and a 30-year-old man from Anna Nagar at Ukkadam were searched by the NIA teams from Kochi. The searches lasted for more than three hours.
NIA sources said that the houses of the two persons were searched as part of investigation into the Coimbatore IS module.
The case relates to an alleged plot by a Coimbatore-based module of the IS headed by Mohammed Azarudeen, a Facebook friend of Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday blast mastermind Zahran Hashim, that allegedly planned terror attacks in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
While Azarudeen and Y. Sheik Hidayathullah of the module were arrested, four other members Akram Sindhaa (26), Abubacker M (29), Sadham Hussain (26) and Ibrahim Shah (28) were booked by the agency on June 12.
The NIA had for a second time sought for the custody of Azarudeen and Hidayathullah, who are in jail. The special court in Kochi had on Wednesday granted investigators the custody of the two for four days.
The agency in its application filed before the court seeking their custody stated that it wanted to investigate the links of the accused in the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka.
“The houses of the two suspects at Ukkadam were searched on Thursday based on specific details extracted from Azarudeen and Hidayathullah during custodial interrogation,” the source added.
As per the FIR registered by the NIA, Azarudeen and his associates were propagating the ideology of the IS/Daesh by recruiting vulnerable youths with a view to carry out terrorist attacks in south India, especially in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
