NIA busts Maharashtra ISIS module, arrests 4 terrorists during raids

New Delhi: In an intelligence-led operation, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday busted a Maharashtra-based ISIS module by arresting four accused for promoting terrorist activities at the behest of the proscribed terrorist outfit.
The four were arrested following extensive raids conducted by the NIA in Mumbai, Thane and Pune this morning. The accused have been identified as Tabish Nasser Siddiqui from Nagpada, Mumbai, Zubair Noor Mohammed Shaikh alias Abu Nusaiba from Kondhwa in Pune, and Sharjeel Shaikh and Zulfikar Ali Barodawala from Padgha in Thane. Searches were conducted at their houses at five locations in the ISIS Maharashtra module case, registered by the NIA on June 28 this year.
The NIA teams seized several incriminating materials, such as electronic gadgets and several documents related to ISIS, during the searches at the houses of the accused. The material seized clearly exposed the strong and active linkages of the accused with ISIS and their efforts to motivate vulnerable youth to further the terror organization's anti-India agenda.

Preliminary investigations by the NIA have established that the accused had hatched a conspiracy to further the terrorist activities of ISIS, known by different names, such as Islamic State (IS) or Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Daish or Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) or ISIS Wilayat Khorasan or Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham Khorasan (ISIS-K).

The accused were trying to breach the unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of the country and preparing to wage a war against the Government of India, as part of the ISIS conspiracy, by raising and operating a sleeper Cell in Maharashtra.

The NIA raids followed credible inputs that the accused Tabish Nasser Siddiqui, Zubair Noor Mohammed Shaikh alias Abu Nusaiba, Sharjeel Shaikh and Zulfikar Ali Barodawala and their associates had recruited youth and trained them in the fabrication of Improvised Explosive Devises (IED) and weapons.
"The accused had also shared relevant material, including 'Do it Yourself kits' (DIY), amongst themselves for fabrication of IEDs and manufacture of small weapons, Pistols etc.

Further, the NIA said, on the directions of their foreign-based ISIS handlers, the accused had also created inflammatory media content, which was published in the magazine 'Voice of Hind', in furtherance of the banned outfit's agenda of terror and violence.