Pune ISIS Module case: NIA raids Padgha house of accused Shamil Nachan

Shamil was arrested for participating in the assembling of bombs and training workshops and also in the fabrication and testing of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

An official said searches were carried out at the Padgha house of Shamil, an alleged member of an ISIS Sleeper Cell, which yielded several mobile phones, hard disks and some handwritten documents which are being examined and analysed.

According to NIA, Shamil had been working with five other accused namely 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 various parts of the country by fabricating and exploding the IEDs.

As per NIA, Imran and Yunus, both members of the ‘Sufa terrorist gang’, who were absconding and were declared ‘most wanted’ by the NIA, were recently arrested by Pune police in a case relating to the seizure of explosives from a car in Rajasthan in April 2022.

NIA said that in their investigations in the Pune ISIS module case, it was revealed that Shamil and the other members of an ISIS Sleeper Cell had assembled IEDs at a house in Kondhwa, Pune, where they had also organised and participated in an IED assembling and training workshop last year. They had even carried out a controlled explosion at this location to test an IED made by them, the NIA said.

The conspiracy was aimed at committing terrorist acts with the aim to disturb peace and communal harmony in the country. The accused had plans to wage a war against the government in furtherance of the ISIS agenda to spread terror and violence with the goal of establishing an Islamic State in the country, the agency said. The NIA has been carrying out extensive raids across India to thwart the outfit’s terror designs and plans.