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A special NIA court has sentenced an Islamic State (ISIS) operative to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for promoting the banned terrorist outfit’s ideology and conspiring to carry out suicide attacks in Kochi.
The accused, Riyas Aboobacker alias Abu Dujana, a resident of Kerala’s Palakkad, was also fined by the special court, which found him guilty under sections 38 and 39 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Riyas was arrested by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) on September 24, 2019, and a chargesheet was filed against him in October of that year. He is the third person to be convicted in the ISIS Kasaragod module case.
The case is related to an investigation wherein 14 people from Kerala’s Kasaragod district and their families had left India between May and July 2016 and joined ISIS. In 2018, the NIA obtained the conviction of Yasmeen Mohammed Zahid, who was sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine, followed by Nashidul Hamsafar, who was handed a five-year rigorous imprisonment in 2021.
Riyas, who went by the name of Abu Dujana on social media, was radicalised in 2017 by absconding accused, Abdul Rashid Abdulla and Ashfak Majeed. The radicalisation took place on social media and since July 2018, Riyas has been propagating and furthering ISIS’s violent ideology and plans.
According to the NIA probe, Riyas, in October 2018, conspired to carry out suicide attacks at prominent business centres in Kochi to spread terror and further the activities of ISIS in India.
Investigations further established that Riyas had motivated and sought support from his co-conspirators for carrying out the terrorist acts.
The NIA took over the case, originally registered at a police station in Kasaragod, in August 2016, and was continuing with its investigations into the matter.
