KOCHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has recovered information related to Islamic State (IS) activities in Kashmir from the mobile phone of Palakkad native Riyas Aboobacker, who was planning suicide attacks in Kerala.
Sources said the NIA will apply for Riyas’ custody again after the analysis of the content retrieved from his mobile phone is over.
The agency had recently filed a petition in NIA Court here opposing Riyas’ bail plea.
In it, NIA said the preliminary analysis of the data recovered after ‘mirroring’ Riyas’ phone, prima facie, revealed his involvement in the conspiracy to conduct suicide attacks.
It said for the past one year, Riyas has been following the speeches and videos of Sri Lanka blasts mastermind Zahran Hashim.
“Pro-IS materials, audio clips sent by Rashid Abdullah, Jihadi literature, details of IS activities in Kashmir were recovered. Since the data is voluminous, more time is required to verify it,” the NIA said in the plea.
The NIA has also received crucial evidence against Riyas from the interrogation of other members of the IS module which the NIA busted recently. The team has now extended its investigation to neighbouring states, including Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
“The content related to IS activities in Kashmir was sent from abroad. We suspect Riyas knew about other IS modules in India. His links with an IS module in Tamil Nadu is under probe. A few mobile phone numbers were traced from his phone and attempts are on to identify the persons they belong to,” said sources.
Riyas’ bail plea
NIA Court on Monday heard B A Aloor, who filed a bail petition for Riyas. He submitted that despite a strong intelligence network, Riyas’ IS links could be exposed only after the Sri Lanka blast. The original case in which Riyas was arraigned was registered in 2016 and he had no links with the persons who left for Syria and Afghanistan to join IS. The court will hear the NIA’s submission on the plea on Wednesday.
It was on April 29 that the NIA raided the residences of the accused persons in Kasaragod and Palakkad who had formed a four-member module to further IS operations in Kerala. Later, the NIA arrested Riyas, who allegedly claimed during his interrogation that he was ready to conduct a suicide attack in the state.