NIA is probing Pune’s ISIS module case. In this case, the NIA has arrested the sixth accused yesterday from Padagha in Thane, adjacent to Mumbai. The name of the sixth accused arrested is Shamil Nachan. Nachan is alleged to have been active in promoting the terrorist activities of the terrorist organization ISIS. Accused Shamil Nachan is accused of being involved in the making, training and testing of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) for carrying out terrorist acts.
Shamil Nachan was working with already arrested Zulfikar Ali Barodawala, Mohd Imran Khan, Mohd Yunus Saqi, Simab Naseeruddin Qazi and Abdul Qadir Pathan, some other suspects in the case. The NIA said that two of the accused, Imran Khan and Mohd Yunus Saki, were members of the ‘Al Sufa terrorist gang’ and were absconding. The NIA had declared him ‘Most Wanted’ in April 2022 in a case related to the recovery of explosives from a car in Rajasthan and had also placed a reward of Rs 5 lakh each against him.
It is learned that these ISIS sleeper module members, including Shamil, were operating from a house in Kondhwa, Pune, where they assembled IEDs and conducted and participated in bomb training and manufacturing workshops last year. He also conducted a controlled blast at this place to test the IED made by his team. The NIA informed that the investigation conducted in the ISIS Pune Module case on 3rd August 2023 revealed that the accused had planned to execute the terrorist conspiracy with an aim to disturb the peace and communal harmony of the country.
In fact, the name of the sixth accused arrested by NIA is Shakib Nachan, the father of Shamil Nachan, who was arrested in the 2002-03 Mumbai serial train blasts case. In that case, in the year 2016, the court sentenced him to 10 years and after completing his sentence, he was released from jail. His father Shakib was also accused of being the secretary of banned organization SIMI (Student Islamic Movement of India). Shakib Nachan was found guilty in the triple bomb blast case. These blasts took place in Mumbai Central, Vileparle and Mulund in Mumbai, in which more than a dozen people lost their lives.