Two more of IS-linked group detained, to be handed over to NIA

Two more people with suspected links to the recently busted pan-India terror module owing allegiance to the Islamic State have been detained and are likely to be handed over to the NIA soon.

Continuing with its operations against the group, the security agencies picked up a youth from Hyderabad and another person from Maharashtra, official sources said, adding both of them were likely to be handed over to the NIA on Wednesday, official sources said.

The two, whose names have been withheld, were being questioned by a joint team of intelligence agencies.

NIA has so far arrested 14 people belonging to ‘Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind’ (Army of Caliph of India), the Indian wing of ISIS, who were picked up from various parts of the country for allegedly planning to carry out terror strikes at important installations.

Read | How IS is using social media, apps to recruit in India

NIA claimed that the accused were regularly in touch with active members of ISIS in Syria through Internet chatting via ‘Skype’, ‘Signal’ and ‘Trillion’ and were also using the social networking sites to motivate young men to join the feared terror outfit which has captured vast swathes in Syria and Iraq.

Those arrested included Mudabbir Mushtaq Shaikh, the self-styled ‘Ameer’ of group. He was the man behind raising the outfit after earlier attempts by the global terror organisation to set up its base in the sub-continent failed, official sources said.

Shaikh, who assumed the title of ‘Ameer’, supposedly under instructions from Baghdadi himself, was active on some of the social networking sites.

The idea behind setting up the terror group in India was to extend Baghdadi’s ‘Caliphate’, sources said, adding his custodial interrogation may help the security agencies unravel the plans of the organisation.

The NIA had registered a case in 2015 after “credible information” was received that the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Dawlah-al Islamiyah fil-Iraq wa-sh Sham (DAISH), has been engaged in radicalising Indian youth and motivating them to join the terrorist organisation.

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