In Mangaluru blast case, the ISIS Daishwilayah in the Indian forests crops up

The police found that an attempt was being made to establish an Islamic State province in the jungles of South India, a modus operandi that was unearthed in a 2020 case by the NIA.

New Delhi, Nov 23: The investigation into the Mangaluru blast in which Mohammad Shariq is the main accused, the police found that an attempt was being made to establish an Islamic State province in the jungles of South India.

It was learnt that Shariq was part of a group in which one member Taha, a member of the Al-Hind module, planned on establishing an Islamic State province in the jungles of South India.

Interestingly, this modus operandi had come to light when the National Investigation Agency had probed a case in 2020. The NIA found that the members affiliated with the outfit were in the process of setting up ISIS Daishwilayah or province inside the jungles of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Was Shariq part of the same module:

When the module was first discovered in a press note issued in 2020, the NIA had said that this was the first of its kind plot. The plot was hatched in Salem and Chennai. The NIA states in its charge sheet that this module comprised 20 members and was headed by Bengaluru-based Mehboob Pasha and Kuala Moideen from Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu.

To draw context, Cuddalore is the place which had reported the first known Islamic State recruit, Haja Fakhruddin who had left for Syria. It is also the same place where a photograph of some people posing with a t-shirt of the Islamic State was shot.

The NIA, which will soon take over the probe, will dig deeper into this forest module as what they had found in 2020 seems to be connected to the Mangaluru case as well. An official tells OneIndia that the agency would look to find out if Shariq too was part of the 20 members of this module.

What the Islamic State planned:

As a first step the module members were planning on visiting Shivanasamudra in Karnataka to identify a place in the jungle where arms training could be imparted to the recruits.

They had already procured bow tents, bows, arrows, arms, ammunition, boots, ropes, ladders and sleeping bags. In order to extract explosive powder, they had procured a large quantity of firecrackers, the investigation found.

Not just Karnataka:

The NIA had also found that these members had looked for similar places in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, Budwan, Siliguri in Bengal, Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, Kolar and Kodagu in Karnataka.

With the sole intention of targeting Hindus, the module members had planned on launching an all out attack from the jungles of India. Also on their radar were the police, political leaders and government officials, the NIA had found.