Routine monitoring of Internet traffic by the National Investigating Agency led to the arrests of the 11 terror suspects by the Bangalore Central Crime Branch in close collaboration with Central investigating agencies.
NIA was created in 2008 to combat terror and is empowered to deal with terrorrelated crimes across states without permission from them.
Sources said that Shoaib Ahmed Mirza alias Chotu, an MCA student who is the prime accused, was using social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to post inflammatory statements in response to anti-Islamic comments.
Sources said that the NIA came across the account of Shoaib and subsequently tracked his close aides including his roommate Muti- Ur-Rehman Siddiqui, a journalist.
Shoaib is the younger brother of Aijaz Mohammed Mirza, who was working as a junior research fellow with the DRDO. It was sometime in June that the NIA came across Shoaib using social networking platforms to post hate messages, sources pointed out.