Hyderabad: The NIA on Tuesday, taking forward its probe into the activities of Islamic State (ISIS) following the arrest of its five alleged operatives in Hyderabad, searched various locations in the city and recovered 17 rounds of ammunition, besides computers and scanners which were used for online communication.
According to the NIA, the premises of one of the arrested operatives Ibrahim was searched at Talab Katta from where a computer and scanner were seized. The equipment were allegedly used by those arrested to keep in touch with other suspected members of the ISIS.
At the instance of Ibrahim, the anti-terror probe agency carried out searches at the residence of another accused Habeeb in Barkas area of Hyderabad and recovered 17 live rounds of 9 mm calibre.
The NIA conducted searches at Bhawani Nagar in Talab Katta where another computer and scanner were seized, officials said, adding one of the arrested operatives Ilyas told his interrogators that the system was used to scan the written 'oath of allegiance' to the IS Caliph the group had signed scanned and mailed to their handler.
The group had given itself 'Kunyat' (aliases) for organisational purposes and also assigned tasks among themselves, as per PTI.
Rizwan was coded as 'Abu Hasan' and assigned the job of 'Mahasib' (account keeper), Ibrahim got the name 'Abu Abdur Rahman' who was tasked to be 'Raa'bit' (communcation incharge), Illyas Yazdani was 'Abu Mansoor' and was the religious affairs incharge.
Habeeb Mohammed assumed the alias of 'Abu Shaiba' and was the 'Askari' (in-charge of matters relating to firearms), while Fahad became 'Abu Haleema' and was yet to be assigned any task when they were arrested.
Earlier, five youths were arrested and six others including a techie were detained by NIA in Hyderabad on June 29. The investigating agency had claimed then to have busted a 'terror module' that was suspected to be linked to the ISIS after conducting searches at different locations in the old city.
At that time, the NIA sleuths had also recovered weapons, ammunition, urea, acid, some chemicals, electronic gadgets and other incriminating material besides Rs 15 lakh in cash from their possession, its officials and Hyderabad Police had said, adding that youths were working at the behest of ISIS handlers.
The next day the NIA had claimed that the five persons arrested (Mohammed Ibrahim Yazdani alias Ibbu, Habeeb Mohammed alias Sir, Mohammed Ilyas Yazdani, Abdullah Bin Ahmed Al Amoodi and Muzaffar Hussain Rizwan) were getting instructions from ISIS for planning and carrying out terrorist activities in India.
The NIA had got 12-day custody of the five arrested persons on July 01. Metropolitan Sessions Judge K Rajkumar had allowed the NIA's petition seeking their custody and had directed that the accused be produced before the court on July 12.
(With PTI inputs)
