NIA court sentences ISIS operative to 10-year RI for planning terror attacks in Kerala

mangaloretoday.com/news18

Kochi, Feb 09, 2024: An NIA Special Court in Kerala has sentenced an ISIS operative to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) for promoting the banned terrorist outfit’s violent ideology and conspiring to carry out suicide attacks in Kochi.

 

The accused, Riyas Aboobacker, a resident of Palakkad (Kerala), has also been fined by the special court. He was arrested by the NIA on September 24, 2019, and charge-sheeted in October of the same year.

Aboobacker has been found guilty under sections 38 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and section 120B of IPC. He is the third person to be convicted in the ISIS Kasaragod Module case.

The case is related to the activities of 14 youths from the Kasaragod district of Kerala who, along with their families, had exited India between May and July 2016 and had joined ISIS/ Daish in the Islamic Caliphate announced by the proscribed terrorist organisation.

NIA in its investigations found that Riyad in October 2018, also conspired to carry out suicide attacks at prominent business centres in Kochi to spread terror and further the activities of ISIS.

Investigations had further established that Riyas had motivated and sought support from his co-conspirators for carrying out the terrorist acts.

Riyas, who went by the name Abu Dujana on social media, had been radicalised into the ISIS/Daish ideology since 2017 by absconding accused, Abdul Rashid Abdulla and Ashfak Majeed

In 2018, the probe agency obtained the conviction of Yasmeen Mohammed Zahid, who was sentenced to 7 years RI with a fine, followed by Nashidul Hamsafar, who was handed 5 years RI in 2021.

NIA had taken over the case, originally registered at the Chandera Police Station, Kerala, in August 2016, and is continuing with its investigations in the matter.