Coimbatore: The NIA (National Investigation Agency) sleuths raided the houses of a few Muslim youth and took a duo into custody for allegedly circulating a video of a terrorist Zahran Hasim on social media, while three more were asked to appear for an enquiry at the NIA office in Kochi.
Tension has prevailed in Coimbatore for the past one week following an intelligence report on six LeT terrorists infiltrating into the state through Sri Lanka with a plan to set of serial blasts across the state in worship places, as they did in Churches near Colombo on Easter Sunday. Prime areas in the city and suburbs are under intensive police surveillance.
While being so, a team NIA staff from Kochi and Coimbatore split into five teams and raided the houses of five Muslim youths in Coimbatore on Thursday. The raids started at around 5 am and remained till 10 am at Ukkadam-Kottai Medu Billal Nagar, Vincent Road and GM Nagar.
The NIA staff entered the houses of Umar Farooq, Janafar Ali, Sameza Mubin, Mohamed Yasser, Sadam Hussein after tracking their social media accounts for the past few months and recording their controversial posts on social media. Recently the group allegedly shared a video of a terrorist Zahran Hasim who allegedly acted as the brain behind the Sri Lankan serial blasts. They took Sameza Mubin and Janafar Ali into custody and are quizzing them while the remaining three were asked to appear at Kochi NIA office on Friday for enquiry. A few months ago the alert NIA staff started a shadow watch, suspecting the gang to have links with terrorist movements, added the informed source.
