A National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Kochi on Wednesday found guilty a suspected Islamic State (ISIS) operative who was charge-sheeted for conspiring to carry out terror attacks in India. The court will later pronounce the quantum of punishment to Riyas Aboobacker, 29, a native of Muthalamada in Kerala's Palakkad district. Riyas was arrested in April 2019 and found to be a follower of speeches and videos of Zaharan Hashim, the mastermind behind the 2019 Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka. The NIA found that Riyas wanted to carry out a suicide attack in Kerala. He was charged under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), besides sections 38 (offence relating to membership of a terrorist organisation and 39 (offence relating to support given to a terrorist organisation) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). According to the NIA, Riyas was in touch with at least two men from a group of 22 that left Kerala in 2016 to join ISIS in Afghanistan. He reportedly disclosed that he had been in online contact with Abdul Rashid Abdulla, a key figure from the Kasaragod module of ISIS that emerged in 2016. The NIA said he further disclosed that he had been following speeches/videos of Zahran Hashim of Sri Lanka for more than a year and speeches of Indian Islamic orator Zakir Naik. Riyas had been radicalised by the ISIS ideology under the influence of the absconding accused, as per the NIA.
