Fresh NIA raids at 3 places in Hyderabad

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday conducted fresh raids at three locations in Hyderabad in its Islamic State module probe. The questioning of the five arrested revealed that they have given themselves “assumed names” for operational purposes on the lines of Islamic State (IS).

While the group leader Ibrahim Yazdani was named ‘Abu Abdur Rehman’, his functional duty was to handle communication for the group. His younger brother Illyas’s name was ‘Abu Mansoor’ and was given charge of religious affairs. Similarly, Mohd Habeeb was codenamed as ‘Abu Shaiba’ and was made incharge of arms training.

The other two—Rizwan and Fahad’s nom-de-guerre was ‘Abu Hasan’ and ‘Abu Haleema’. Rizwan was made incharge of the finances. During the raids, NIA claimed to have seized computers, printers and scanners that are suspected to have been used for printing and circulating propaganda material of IS.

The agency also claimed to have seized live ammunition (17 live rounds of 9mm) from a hidden location the house of one of the accused.