In a major operation on Tuesday, the Tamil Nadu Police arrested Erode-based Islamic State sympathisers Asif Mustheen and his associate Yasir Nawab John and recovered a knife, a black IS flag, incriminating documents and digital media devices from their possession.
According to top intelligence sources, the men were on the radar of the agencies for some time.
They said Mustheen was in contact with IS-Core in Syria/Iraq and had expressed his willingness to carry out a suicide attack in India with the intension to target Hindus, monasteries and police stations.
In another IB operation on July 24, Bengaluru Police had arrested a city-based pro-Al Qaeda (AQ) subject Akhtar Hussain Laskar, who originally hails from Assam.
Based on Hussain’s revelations, one of his Salem-based associates — Mohd. Juba, originally from West Bengal — was arrested by Tamil Nadu Police.
Both Akhter and Juba were propagating AQ ideologies through social media platforms, the sources said. They added that the duo was in contact with various foreign (Bangladesh & Afghanistan) as well as India-based pro-AQ entities.
“They also intended to do ‘hijrath’ to J&K and join AQ ranks for ‘jihad’ against India,” they said.
The sources termed the arrests significant, given that the men had plans to carry out their nefarious activities ahead of Independence Day.
“They are upset and wanted to carry out the agenda of IS and AQ. They were radicalised on social media and initial investigation suggests they searched for all kinds of ‘Jihadi’ material on the internet. They were closely following the developments in the ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ cases and were trying to arrange material for a major attack.”
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