NIA Seized Incriminating Evidence in Thane House of Pune ISIS Module Arrest

Pune/New Delhi, 17th August, 2023: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday raided the Thane house of arrested accused Shamil Saquib Nachan in the Pune ISIS module case and seized a host of incriminating material exposing the terrorist organisation’s conspiracy to disrupt peace and communal harmony in the country.

The searches at the Padgha, Thane house of Shamil, a member of an ISIS Sleeper Cell, yielded several mobile phones, hard disks and some handwritten documents etc., which are being examined and analysed. Shamil was arrested earlier for participating in Bomb (IED) Assembly & Training Workshops and also in the fabrication and testing of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

Shamil had been working with five other accused, namely Zulfikar Ali Barodawala, Mohammed Imran Khan, Mohammed Yunus Saki, Simab Nasiruddin Kazi and Abdul Kadir Pathan, along with some other suspects, as part of a bigger conspiracy to trigger violence across various parts of the country by fabricating and exploding the IEDs. Imran and Yunus, both members of the ‘Sufa terrorist gang’, who were absconding and were declared ‘most wanted’ by the NIA, were recently arrested by the Pune in a case relating to the recovery of explosives from a car in Rajasthan in April 2022.

NIA investigations in the Pune ISIS module case (RC 5/23/NIA/MUM) have revealed that Shamil and the other members of an ISIS Sleeper Cell had assembled IEDs at a house in Kondhwa, Pune, where they had also organised and participated in a Bomb (IED) Assembly &Training Workshops shop last year. They had even carried out a controlled explosion at this location to test an IED fabricated by them.

The conspiracy was aimed at committing terrorist acts with the aim to disturb the peace and communal harmony of the country. The accused had plans to wage a war against the Government of India in furtherance of the ISIS agenda to spread terror and violence with the goal of establishing an Islamic State in the country.

ISIS, also known as Islamic State (IS)/Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL)/Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)/Daish/ Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP)/ISIS Wilayat Khorasan/Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham Khorasan (ISIS-K)), has been working on its anti-India agenda by spreading terror across the country through violent acts.

The NIA has been carrying out extensive raids across India to thwart the outfit’s terror designs and plans.