NIA carries out raid in Pune ISIS case, seizes incriminating material

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday carried out a raid in connection with the Pune ISIS module case and seized a host of incriminating material exposing the banned terrorist organisation's conspiracy to disrupt peace and communal harmony in the country, an official said.

The raid was conducted on the house of arrested accused Shamil Saquib Nachan, an alleged member of an ISIS sleeper cell, at Padgha in Thane in Maharashtra.

Several mobile phones, hard disks and some handwritten documents were seized during the raid and are being examined, a spokesperson of the anti-terror central agency said.

Nachan was arrested earlier for participating in bomb-making workshops and in the fabrication and testing of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the agency said.

"He had been working with five other accused - Zulfikar Ali Barodawala, Mohammed Imran Khan, Mohammed Yunus Saki, Simab Nasiruddin Kazi and Abdul Kadir Pathan - and some other suspects as part of a bigger conspiracy to trigger violence across various parts of the country by fabricating and exploding the IEDs.

"Khan and Saki, both members of the 'Sufa terrorist gang', who were absconding and were declared 'most wanted' by the NIA, were recently arrested...in a case relating to the recovery of explosives from a car in Rajasthan in April 2022," the spokesperson said.

The official said the investigation in the Pune ISIS module case has revealed that Nachan and the other members of an ISIS sleeper cell had assembled IEDs at a house in Kondhwa in Pune, where they had also organised and participated in a bomb-assembly and training workshop last year.

They had even carried out a controlled explosion at this location to test an IED fabricated by them, the spokesperson said.

The official said the conspiracy was aimed at committing terrorist acts with the aim to disturb peace and communal harmony in the country.

"The accused had plans to wage a war against the government of India in furtherance of the ISIS agenda to spread terror and violence with the goal of establishing an Islamic State in the country, the spokesperson said, adding the NIA has been carrying out extensive raids across India to thwart the outfit's terror designs and plans.