NIA’s pan-India raid shows the extent of Islamic State infiltration in India and the urge to perform Hijrat

The extent of the penetration that the Islamic State has managed to achieve in India is evident from the NIA's Sunday raids

New Delhi, Aug 01: There were raids across multiple locations in the country by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with Islamic State module cases. Raids were conducted in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

The point in question is the extreme levels of radicalisation that the members of the module had spread. In Bhopal, two persons Mohammad Anas and Zuber Khan were arrested. The NIA said that one of them was a madrasa educated student and the other a graduate from Bhopal.

In Tumakuru, Karnataka, the NIA arrested a students of a Unani Medical College. The student originally hails from Mumbai and he is accused of put out radical Islamic content on the net.

Meanwhile two college students were arrested at Huppari in Maharashtra. Raids were also conducted at Bhatkal and few persons were questioned by the NIA. Meanwhole a Tamil Nadu based operative, Meer Anaas Ali was picked up by the NIA. He is a third year engineering student and was picked from Ambur Town.

Officials OneIndia spoke with says that the pan India raids were conducted because of the extent of the spread of the problem. If one looks at these cases they are all inter-linked and their sole agenda is to radicalise the Muslims and spread hate apart from targeting Hindus.

These cases primarily emanate out of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The strongest links that the agencies have found to the Islamic State are in the southern states. Over the years it has spread to the rest of the country. In the Sunday raids one can see the pattern when it comes to similarity in the kind of content they have been posting. All of them were clear in spreading the ideology of the Islamic State with a larger goal of targeting and spreading fear among the Hindus, the official cited above also said.

In January this year, the NIA had filed a chargesheet against Deepthi Marla, Mohammad Waqar Lone, Mizha Siddeeque, Shifa Haris, Obaid Hamid Matta, Madesh Shankar, Ammar Abdul Rahiman and Muzamil Hassan Bhat.

Mohammad Ameen from Kerala was running several ISIS propaganda channels on various social media platforms to propagate violent Jihad the NIA said. All the eight accused chargesheeted on Friday are affiliated with the banned terrorist organisation ISIS and were involved in radicalising, recruiting, organising terror funds and grooming like-minded gullible Muslim youth through different secured social media platforms to perform 'Hijrat' (migration) to ISIS-controlled territory for joining the ISIS, the NIA said.

Maryam the daughter of former Congress MLA the late B M Idinabba was arrested in connection with the Kerala ISIS case by the National Investigation Agency. The probe so far has revealed that she had honey trapped and then converted 10 Hindu youth into Islam. Once they were converted to Islam, she would force them to join the ISIS.

During the investigation it was revealed that after the decline of the ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Marla and Mohammad Ameen visited Kashmir in January 2020 for Hijrah or religious migration. They also ended in terror acts and supported the activities of the ISIS, the NIA said. The NIA also said that Maryam was the kingpin in the case along with Ameen.

In 2017, the NIA had filed a chargesheet in which said that Rehman's niece, Ajmala and her husband Shifas K P left for Afghanistan via Bengaluru and joined the ISKP in the Nangarhar province. Ajmala is said to have been killed in 2018.

The NIA said that these persons are closely linked with Mohammed Ameen Yahya, an ISIS sympathiser.

Yahya a resident of Mallapuram in Kerala was arrested on March 15 for propagating on behalf of the ISIS on social media channels. He was also accused of radicalising and recruiting Muslim youth into the ISIS. The NIA had also held one Muhab Anva from Kollam and Dr Rahees Rashid, a dentist from Kerala.