CHENNAI: The mastermind behind the "ISIS-inspired module" that the NIA claimed to have busted on Sunday was allegedly operating through a WhatsApp group from Qatar to keep in touch with other members of the group.
NIA sources identified the 30-years-old Manseed alias Omar Al Hindi, who was employed in Qatar, as the mastermind behind the module, which NIA believes to had planned to carry out terror attacks in India. Manseed was on a short four-day visit from Qatar to his native place in Kannur district in Kerala when he, along with five others, was arrested.
Sources said Manseed was in touch with the other members through a WhatsApp group, to which he was the admin and had organised a meeting at Kannur in Kerala. The members of the module, who were residing in different places, had reached Kannur on October 1 for the meeting when the NIA sources said they got a tip off and rounded up them the next day.
On Monday, yet another person - identified as Suba Kani - was arrested in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. Interestingly, two other of the seven suspects arrested so far in the case were residing in Tamil Nadu.
They were Swalih Mohammed alias Yousuf and Abu Basheer alias Rashid. While Mohammed was a native of Thrissur district in Kerala, he was residing in Chennai at Kottivakkam with his family for last two years. It is said he married a woman residing in Chennai after which he shifted his residence to Chennai. NIA sources said he studied only up to Class X and have completed a few computer courses.
Abu Basheer, a resident of Ukkadam in Coimbatore, was the only person said be hailing from Tamil Nadu arrested in connection with the "ISIS-inspired module".