The Indian National Investigation Agency on Wednesday arrested Mohammed Azarudeen, the alleged mastermind of the ISIS Tamil Nadu module, who was a Facebook friend of Sri Lankan suicide bomber Zahran Hashim after it carried out searches at seven locations in Coimbatore, officials said.

During the searches, the agency seized 14 mobile phones, 29 SIM cards, 10 pen drives, three laptops, six memory cards, four hard disc drives, an internet dongle and 13 CDs/DVDs, besides one dagger, an electric baton, 300 air-gun pellets and a large number of incriminating documents, the NIA said in a statement.

A few pamphlets of Popular Front of India and Social Democratic Party of India, both under the scanner of security agencies, have also been seized from the houses and workplaces of the accused, it said.
Based on the recoveries, the agency has started questioning the accused about the material, it added.

A case was registered on May 30 this year against the module allegedly led by 32-year-old Mohammed Azarudeen and five other people from Coimbatore.

The agency had received the information that the accused and their associates were allegedly propagating ISIS ideology on social media and recruiting young people.

ISIS had claimed responsibility for the serial bombings in Sri Lanka on April 21 in which around nine suicide bombers were involved. Nearly 258 people were killed and 500 others injured in the terror attacks in the island nation.