nIn an early morning operation on Thursday, sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), barged into multiple locations in Coimbatore as part of its probe into reports of infiltration by Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) into Tamil Nadu.
“The NIA is conducting raids in Coimbatore in houses of Umar Farooq, Janaabar Ali, Sameena Mubin, Mohammed Yasir and Saddam Hussein relating to the possible links of these people with Islamic State and LeT infiltrated terrorists in Tamil Nadu,” a source on the NIA team told The Pioneer.
Residents of five persons were raided by the team of NIA officials which reached the city from its Kochi office.
Sources in NIA tod this newspaper that the raids were part of the investigation into the intelligence alert of August 23 about terrorists belonging to the LeT had entered various parts of Tamil Nadu to create extremist activities. Coimbatore is already in the radar of Intelligence and security agencies as there are reports that Islamic youth were on a mission to set up the dreaded Ansarulla module in the district.
Various parts of Coimbatore has come under a security blanket as the city is all set to celebrate Vinayaka Chathurthui in a big way.
Though the raids lasted for nearly six hours no arrest has been made with either by the NIA or the State Police. Some of the houses raided on Thursday were the same ones searched by the NIA after the August 23 alert.
The NIA probing the links of Easter bombings in Sri Lanka had conducted searches at various locations in Tamil Nadu as part of its probe into the ‘Ansarulla’ terror module case in July. During that raid five persons were taken into custody from various places in the State, including Ramanathapuram, Theni , Coimbatore, Tirunelveli and Chennai. The five persons were arrested following the capture of 11 youth in Delhi, who were deported from a West Asian country.