Indian police raid houses week after Sri Lanka blasts

KERALA: Indian police on Sunday raided houses of three suspects in connection with a case of 15 people who left India to join the militant Islamic State (IS) group.

After a week of disastrous bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India said it carried out searches at three houses in the southern state of Kerala.

It is pertinent to note that the responsibility of the coordinated suicide blasts was claimed by the IS.

“These persons are suspected to have links with some of the accused persons in the said case who had exited India to join the proscribed terrorist organisation ISIS/Daish,” the NIA said in a statement.

Last week, a top Sri Lankan military source said that the leader of the National Thowheed Jamaath, Zahran Hashim, is believed to be the mastermind behind the Sunday Easter attacks in Sri Lanka, who spent “substantial” time in “south India.”

According to The Hindu, Hashim was identified as the leader of the extremist NTJ by the investigators, who, they said, “had executed the highly coordinated blasts on Sunday.”

Following the deadly blasts, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks and subsequently released an image of eight suspected bombers.

Sri Lankan investigation agencies have claimed to identify nine suicide bombers, including a woman. “We are looking into the IS angle. We also suspect that some of those radical youth were indoctrinated and trained in India, possibly Tamil Nadu,” the Indian website wrote quoting a senior Sri Lankan official.