Al Hind, an offshoot of the Islamic State terror outfit, has been plotting to form a ISIS Daishwilayah (province) in the forests of South India like Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu and Shivasamudra in Karnataka according to the July chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against 17 members of the module. Following a tip-off to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), they had been scouring the forests of South India for any kind of terror activities. They recently nabbed Mahboob Pasha, whose office has been serving as the headquarters for terrorist activities in countries like Iraq and Syria. The investigation report for the same was filed recently.
It was revealed upon investigation that the Al-Hind Organisation had been researching about zeroing in on the appropriate region to conduct their activities and had camped in Shivasamudra in Karnataka. They had been practicing archery and training the recruits on bomb-making, ammunition and attacking mechanisms.
The 20-member module, led by Bengaluru-based Mehboob Pasha and Cuddalore based Khaja Moideen even bought books on famous sandalwood smuggler and dacoit Veerappan who successfully dodged the police of several states for many years.
Khaja Moideen even sold his inherited land in Cuddalore and gave an amount of ₹5 lakh to buy jungle survival and training items. In its chargesheet the NIA stated that on the directions of Khaja Moideen, module members procured tents, rain coats, ropes, jungle boots, ladders, pulleys, sleeping bags, bows and arrows, knives, arms and ammunitions, as well as large quantity of firecrackers and sparklers with an intention to extract explosive content from them for making powerful IEDs.
The terror outfit members practiced Kung Fu and Taekwondo at the Al-Hind Trust’s premises. The module members also participated in anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) protests in different cities, on the directions of Pasha.
It was also revealed that they had been planning to establish safe houses in Coorg and Kolar in Karnataka, Jambusaar in Gujarat, Siliguri and Bardwan in West Bengal, Ratnagiri in Maharashtra and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh. There were also several pieces of evidence recovered, which pointed to their plans to assassinate several Hindu leaders, politicians, government officers and then retreat to these forests.
The Al-Hind module, operated from the Al-Hind Trust office of Pasha in Guruppanpalya, Bengaluru, which was unearthed by agencies in January 2020 with multiple raids in Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Moideen was arrested in 2014 in connection with the murder of a Hindu leader KP Suresh Kumar in Tamil Nadu but was released on bail in July 2019. Since then, he had been in touch with Pasha to create a new module, the NIA said.