ISIS suspects had temples, hotels on radar
NIA officials found that the accused were active on WhatsApp and other social media and had started groups to radicalise youth.
Hyderabad: Apart from malls and IT zones in Madhapur and Gachibowli, the ISIS suspects also had temples, Hindutva leaders and star hotels on their radar, revealed top TS cops.
The brothers Ibrahim Yazdani and Ilyas Yazdani not only instigated neigbhours but also friends on Facebook. In all recent crackdowns against ISIS terror modules, NIA officials found that the accused were active on WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter and other social media and had started groups to radicalise youth.
Excerpts from an NIA chargesheet filed in a recent ISIS case show how terror suspects operated, their code names and the radicalisation techniques.
NIA, in a chargesheet filed in a Jaipur court in connection with a case booked against Mohammed Sirajuddin of Gulbarga in Karnataka, alleged that analysis of electronic devices had revealed that the accused had subscribed to many ISIS and al Qaida related channels on social media.
NIA alleged, “The accused Siraj as a supporter of ISIS invited others and lured them to become the member of the organisation by disseminating videos, images, comments and literature. Siraj had created multiple e-mail and Facebook IDs and made friends with others."
One of the message of Siraj, welcoming an associate, read: "Welcome Bhai, There are Mujahids from IS Libya inside," indicating that active IS terrorists were part of the group.
Online acts exposed terrorists
The men who were picked up by the National Investigation Agency on Wednesday had initially come under the radar of intelligence agencies because of their online activities.
Senior officials from Telangana police said that they were in regular touch with IS sympathisers abroad on social media. They also allegedly searched for material on IS ideologies.
“One of the suspects had liked an Islamic State’s page in FB run by an Indian abroad. From there, he came across another page suspected to be run by key IS recruiter Shafi Armar. As soon as he liked the page, the page admin contacted him over FB chat. From then on, he had been in constant touch with the IS recruiter and working as per his orders in Hyderabad,” said a senior official. Central intelligence had tapped the activities of at least two suspects and had been monitoring them.