Terrorist outfit ISKP claims hand in Coimbatore, Mangaluru blasts
Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), a UN-designated terrorist organisation, made the claims in the latest issue of its propaganda magazine ‘Voice of Khurasan’. The 68-page issue of the magazine was released by ISKP’s Al-Azaim Media Foundation on Saturday.
New Delhi: Terrorist outfit Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) has claimed the responsibility for blasts in Coimbatore and Mangaluru last year, and asked its “operatives” in South India to wage a war against Hindus and the country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
ISKP, a UN-designated terrorist organisation, made the claims in the latest issue of its propaganda magazine ‘Voice of Khurasan’. The 68-page issue of the magazine was released by ISKP’s Al-Azaim Media Foundation on Saturday.
“Do you not consider our attacks in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka (Bangalore) where our brothers took revenge…,” the magazine read. Though the magazine has named Banglaore instead of Mangaluru while referring to the second attack, it was not clear if was deliberate or a typing error.
The ISKP’s claim came days after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on February 15 carried out raids at 40 locations in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka in connection with the blasts in Coimbatore and Mangaluru in October and November last year, respectively. The federal anti-terror agency is probing into the two cases to find a common link.
NIA has already arrested several ISIS suspects in connection with the October 23, 2022 car bomb blast at Coimbatore and the November 19 blast in an auto-rickshaw at Mangaluru.
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In the Coimbatore blast, which took place in front of Kottai Eswaran Temple in a car, the main bomber Jamesha Mubeen was planning to carry out a suicide attack, NIA has said. Mubeen was killed in the blast.
The Mangaluru blast took place in an auto-rickshaw, when the main suspect Mohammad Shariq was planning to put it in a public place. Shariq had received injuries in the blast.
The ISKP magazine also sought to take “revenge” on Hindus and the BJP. “…O BJP and police and military officers… we promise you a bloody revenge in return,” the magazine read.
NIA probe in the Coimbatore blast revealed that accused persons had held conspiracy meetings in the interior regions of Asanoor and Kadambur areas of Sathyamangalam forest in Tamil Nadu’s Erode district in February 2022. In these meetings, led by previously arrested accused Umar Farooq, participants Mubeen (who died in the October 23 blast), Mohammed Azharuddin, Sheikh Hidayatullah and Sanofar Ali conspired to prepare for and execute terror acts.
It is suspected that Shariq, involved in Mangaluru blast, was in touch with Jameesha Mubeen.
HT had earlier reported that the accused in the Coimbatore blast case were investigated by NIA in 2019 as well, while Mohammad Azharduddin headed an ISIS module in Coimbatore in 2018-19.
The members of this module were, in fact, in touch with the April 21, 2019 Sri Lanka bombings mastermind Maulvi Zahran bin Hashim and were planning to carry out similar strikes in Kerala and Tamil Nadu at that time.
Hashim and another Sri Lanka bomber — Mohammad Azaan — even travelled to India in 2017 and 2018 to discuss plans of Islamic State. Indian agencies, based on the NIA probe into the Coimbatore module, had sent three alerts to Sri Lankan security agencies about a plan to carry out a major strike there.
