The National Investigating Agency (NIA) on Wednesday carried out searches at various places in Coimbatore in connection with the April 21 serial suicide bombings in Colombo that led to the killing of over 250 people.

One of the accused, Mohammed Azarudeen, booked recently in the Kerala-Tamil Nadu ISIS module case, was a Facebook friend of Sri Lankan suicide bomber Zahran Hashim and other members of the module have also been sharing radical contents attributed to Zahran Hashim, over the social media.

Sources said the raids were conducted following suspicion that explosives were procured by the Sri Lankan terrorists from Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The searches were conducted in connection with ISIS Kerala-Tamil Nadu Module Case registered by the NIA on May 30 this year.

The named accused in the case include Mohammed Azarudeen (32), Akram Sindhaa (26), Y Shiek Hidayathullah (38), Abubacker M (29), Sadham Hussain A (26) and Ibrahim alias Shahin Shah (28) and others based on information received that the accused persons and their associates were propagating the ideology of proscribed terrorist organisation ISIS/ Daish on social media with the intention of recruiting vulnerable youth into the ISIS/ Daish for carrying out terrorist attacks in South India especially in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The prime accused Mohammed Azarudeen has been the leader of the module and has been maintaining the Facebook page named “KhilafahGFX”, through which he had been propagating the ideology of ISIS/ Daish.

“ Accused Mohammed Azarudeen has been a facebook friend of Sri Lankan suicide bomber Zahran Hashim and other members of the module have also been sharing radical contents attributed to Zahran Hashim, over the social media. Accused Ibrahim alias Shahin Shah has been a close associate of arrested accused

Riyas Abubacker  ISIS Kasaragod Case registered in 2016, who had planned to conduct terrorist attacks in Kerala, on behalf of the ISIS/ Daish, the NIA said in a statement.

During the searches digital devices including 14 mobile phones, 29 SIM cards, 10 pen drives, three laptops, six memory cards, four hard disc drives, one internet dongle and 13 CDs/ DVDs besides one dagger, one electric baton, 300 air-gun pellets and a large number of incriminating documents and few PFI/SDMI pamphlets have been seized from the houses and work places of accused persons, the NIA said.

The NIA spokesperson said accused persons are being questioned regarding the incriminating materials seized during the searches.