Chennai: A total of 14 persons have been arrested in Delhi by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the investigations of Easter Day serial blasts in Sri Lanka. The arrested persons are expected to be brought to Chennai and remanded at Poonamallee Court.
The accused men have been held for allegedly making donations to banned extremists groups. NIA teams tracked them with the bank account details.
Recently, NIA sleuths had conducted searches in the city and in Nagapattinam leading to the arrest of three persons.
They were arrested for conspiracy, collecting funds and making preparations to carry out terrorist attacks in India with the intention of establishing Islamic rule in the country.
A press release said, cases were registered against Syed Buhari who is the first accused in the case and is from Chennai. The two others are Hassan Ali Yunusmaricar and Mohammed Yusuffudeen Harish Mohammed, who are natives of Nagapattinam. The trio have been booked under 121A and 122 of IPC besides sections 17, 18, 18-B and 39 of UA (P) Act.
The release said, “Based on credible information received that the accused persons, while being within and beyond India had conspired and conducted consequent preparation to wage war against the Government of India, by forming terrorist gang Ansarulla.”
It has also been learnt that the accused persons and their associates had collected funds and made preparations to carry out terrorist attacks in India, with the intention of establishing Islamic rule in India.
NIA sleuths carried out searches at the houses of the accused in the city and in Nagapattinam. They seized nine mobiles, 15 sim cards, seven memory cars, three laptops, five hard discs, six pen drives, two tablets, three cds/dvds, besides magazines, banners, notices, posters and books.
Recently, NIA had conducted raids at the branch offices of Wahdathe Islami Hind. Bukhari was the state president of the Islamic outfit registered in Uttar Pradesh in 2006 as a charitable social organisation. It opened offices in Tamilnadu in 2009. This organisation has been allegedly funding Ansarulla and also linked to banned outfit Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).