ISIS' India module Al-Hind plotted to build province inside jungles of South India, says NIA in chargesheet

New Delhi, 3-Oct-2020

The Indian module of terrorist organisation Islamic State (ISIS) was plotting to establish its province inside jungles of South India, according to a chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency in July this year. The chargesheet, reviewed by Hindustan Times, an offshoot of IS operating in south India, known as the Al-Hind module had planned to establish ISIS Daishwilayah (province) inside the jungles of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala as recently as in late 2019. On July 14, the NIA filed a chargesheet against 17 conspirators who had formed a terror group initiated by two terrorists from Bengaluru and Cuddalore to carry out strikes in India and were involved in furthering the activities of ISIS in the southern states. The two key conspirators - Mehboob Pasha from Bengaluru and Khaja Moideen of Cuddalore - recruited vulnerable youth and procured arms and ammunition and large quantities of explosive material for making powerful IEDs. They also collected jungle training material to conduct training at Shivanasamudra and Gundelpet in Karnataka. The accused persons were also communicating with unknown foreign ISIS handlers through the dark web.

ISIS terrorists planned to target Hindu leaders
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The chargesheet further stated that the outfit had even identified hideouts in Kolar, Kodagu, and other places in Karnataka; Jambusar in Gujarat; Ratnagiri in Maharashtra; Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh; and Burdwan and Siliguri in West Bengal where they could hide. Their plan was to target/murder Hindu religious and political leaders, police officers, government officials and other high profile individuals all over India and then retreat to the forest, the charge sheet added. The agency had earlier claimed that members of the banned terror group - Islamic State (IS) or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) - in connivance with a few resident and non-resident Indians, had been indulging in identification, radicalization, recruitment, training.