nThe National Investigation Agency in a surprise move on Wednesday took into custody six persons from Coimbatore who were planning to stage massive suicide attacks in South India on the pattern of the Easter Sunday bombings at Colombo which had claimed more than 250 lives.

Mohammed Azharudheen, a 32-year-old youth, who has been taken into custody by the NIA team, is said to be a close associate of Zahran Hashim, the master brain behind the  Easter Sunday blasts at Colombo staged by  the Thowheed  Jamat  of Sri Lanka . “Mohammed Azharudheen was a Facebook  friend of Zahran Hashim and they were exchanging information about the setting up of Islamic State (IS) modules in Tamil Nadu and Kerala,” said a senior NIA official who did not want his name to be quoted. The NIA is in the process of unravelling whether Azharudheen had personal  contacts with Hashim in addition to the exchange of information through the social media sites.

The six persons who have been taken into custody besides Azharudheen are Akram Sindhaa (26), Shiek Hdayatullah (38), M Abubacker (29), Sadhaam Hussein (26) and Shahin Shah @Ibrahim (28). All those who have been taken into custody are residents of Coimbatore district, a known hub  of Islamic extremism.

The NIA team has found that the Facebook  page KHILAFAH GFX was being used by  Azharudheen and others to propagate the  Islamic State ideology and to recruit youngsters for terrorist attacks in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The NIA action comes immediately after its sleuths visited Colombo recently where it held discussions   with their counterparts in Sri Lanka. The Indian intelligence agencies had warned their Sri Lankan counterparts about possible terrorist strikes in the island nation weeks before the Easter Sunday blasts.