3 more arrested under UAPA in Coimbatore in IS module case

COIMBATORE: Police on Saturday arrested three youths from Coimbatore under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, in connection with the recently busted ISIS module.
Two youths from the city had been arrested earlier this week by the NIA. They are part of a Kerala-Tamil Nadu module of the ISIS with links to Zahran Hashim, the mastermind of the April 21 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, said a senior police officer.
A Mohammed Hussain, 27, and A Shahjahan, 27, of Ukkadam and Y Sheik Shafiullah, 35, of Karumbukkadai, arrested on Saturday, were medical representatives.Shafiullah is the younger brother of Y Sheik Hidayathullah, who was arrested by the NIA on June 14. They were involved in recruiting youth into ISIS through social media campaigns and were also planning terrorist attacks in Coimbatore city, police said. They have been booked under sections 18, 38 and 39 of the UAPA. K A Yahoob, father of Shafiullah and Hidayathullah, the siblings, claimed cases had been foisted on his sons. The 72-year-old, who was arrested in connection with February 1998 Coimbatore serial blasts and who was in jail for more than nine years before being acquitted, accused the BJP of trying to tarnish the Muslim community’s name and misusing the NIA.
The arrests were made based on a complaint filed by Podanur sub-inspector P Udhaya Kumar with inspector P Maheswaran, saying an informer had alerted him about the three meeting secretly in different places in the city and discussing ISIS agenda to unleash terror attacks by ploughing explosive-laden trucks into milling crowds, especially at temples and churches. The three, who used to euologise Zahran Hashim, allegedly targeted some police officers in the intelligence wing, the complaint said.
They had also met a few other accomplices whose identities have not been revealed, police said, adding that they recovered some videos and photographs including digital evidence of instructions received from ISIS handlers abroad.
“During inquiry, we found they were in touch with NTJ leader Hashim. They used to share among themselves videos of ISIS war in Iraq and Syria. They translated propaganda material of ISIS into Tamil to circulate among local youth,” said a police officer.
Their objective was to disturb the communal harmony in Coimbatore, which was rocked by a series of terror attacks in 1998. The three, summoned for questioning by police on Friday, were lodged in Coimbatore central prison.