Indian NIA arrests Zahran’s Facebook friends in Coimbatore
Friday, June 14, 2019The Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA), during a raid in seven locations in the Southern city of Coimbatore in pursuit of individuals suspected of ISIS links, arrested a 32-year-old man who was a Facebook friend of Zahran Hashim, one of the bombers of the deadly Easter Sunday Attacks.
The National Investigation Agency recorded the arrest of Mohammed Azarudeen after questioning him and his five accomplices for nearly 12 hours in Coimbatore in western Tamil Nadu.Officials said Azarudeen was not just friends with Zahran Hashim, one of the bombers, on Facebook but was actively involved in propagating the messages of the suicide bomber on the social media platform.
Azarudeen and his accomplises were questioned by the NIA during searches at their residences in Coimbatore following the lodging of a case against them for allegedly propagating the ideology of terror outfit, IS, on social media to recruit new members for carrying out attacks in South India.
Azarudeen leader of the ISIS module in Tamil Nadu has been maintaining a Facebook page named “KhilafahGFX”, through which he propagated the ideology of IS and has also been sharing radical contents attributed to the Sri Lankan suicide bomber, the agency said in a statement.
However, Azarudeen’s direct connection with the blasts in Sri Lanka have not been established so far. Along with Azarudeen, the NIA also arrested Akram Sindhaa, Y. Shiek Hiayathullah, Sadham Hussain, Ibrahim Shahin, and Abubacker M.
During the search digital devices including 14 mobile phones, 29 SIM cards, 10 pen drives, 3 laptops, 6 memory cards, 4 hard disc drives, 1 internet dongle and 13 CD/DVDs, an electric baton, 300 air-gun pellets and many incriminating documents and a few phamphlets had been found.
