The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday detained a 26-year-old man, working as an ambulance driver in the city, on the charge of radicalizing college students for recruitment to the extremist outfit ISIS.
The youth, identified as Al Fazid, hailing from Mayiladuthurai district, was working as a driver at an ambulance service centre for over eight months in Purasaiwakkam locality of Chennai city. NIA officials from Kerala took him to the Chennai office of the central anti-terror agency for further questioning about his involvement with the Islamic State (IS), sources said.
His detention is in connection with the IS radicalisation case and the NIA carried out searches at 16 places across the state. During the raids, the NIA sleuths have seized pen drives, hard discs and other digital material.
It is suspected that he was in touch with ISIS handlers, particularly with one Sadiq wanted by the central agencies, and was engaged in radicalizing college going students on IS ideology through social media with the intention of recruiting them.
According to the sources, Fazid was attracted to the IS ideology through Sadiq, who had been conducting self defence courses.
NIA has been monitoring IS footprints in Tamil Nadu since the February 2019 Ramlingam murder case, pertaining to a quarrel over religious preaching, and the October 2022 sensational Coimbatore car bomb blast near a temple.
In the former, in which Popular Front of India activists are suspected to be involved, the NIA had arrested two of the absconding accused on Saturday last. In the later, the agency had filed the chargesheet and additional chargesheets as well.