NIA announces cash reward on 4 wanted accused in Pune ISIS module case

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has announced a cash reward of Rs 3 lakh each for information about four wanted accused persons in the ISIS Pune module case, an official said on Tuesday. The accused persons have been identified as Mohmmed Shahnawaz Shafiuzzama Alam alias Abdulla, Rizwan Abdul Haji Ali, Abdulla Faiyaz Shaikh alias Diaperwala and Talha Liyakat Khan, the official said. The identity of informants will be kept secret, said the NIA, which is conducting a probe into the case.

The NIA recently arrested some persons for alleged active involvement in promoting activities of the terrorist organisation ISIS as part of a module based in Pune in Maharashtra.

The agency had carried out raids in connection with the Pune ISIS module case and seized a host of incriminating material exposing the banned terrorist organisation’s conspiracy to disrupt peace and communal harmony in the country, an official earlier said. The NIA last month arrested one Shamil Saquib Nachan in the case and claimed it had seized incriminating material from his residence in Thane district and that the material exposed his conspiracy and of the other accused to spread terror and cause disruption in the country.

As per the agency, Nachan had been working with five other arrested accused Zulfikar Ali Barodawala, Mohammed Imran Khan, Mohammed Yunus Saki, Simab Nasiruddin Kazi and Abdul Kadir Pathan, along with some other suspects, as part of a bigger conspiracy to trigger violence across the country by fabricating and setting off improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The NIA had said the accused were all members of the ISIS sleeper module.

As per preliminary probe, Nachan and the other accused had assembled IEDs in a house in Kondhwa in Pune where they had also organised and participated in a bomb (IED) assembly and training workshop last year, the agency earlier said.

They had plans to wage a war against the Government of India in furtherance of the ISIS agenda to spread terror and violence with the goal of establishing an Islamic State in the country, the NIA said.