NIA files chargesheet against 7 men in Ballari ISIS module case

The Ballari module case was registered by the NIA in December 2023. The NIA investigations revealed that some of the accused had carried out a trial blast in Karnataka’s Ballari.

Six of the charge-sheeted accused had taken a pledge of allegiance to ISIS after the oath was administered to them by Md. Sulaiman alias Minaj, 26, the self-proclaimed Amir of the group, the NIA said in its statement.

Minaj, Mohammed Muniruddin, 25, Syed Sameer, 19, and Md. Muzammil, 26, all residents of Karnataka; Anas Iqbal Shaikh, 23, a resident of Maharashtra; Mohd. Shahbaz alias Zulfikar, 23, of Jharkhand; and Shayan Rehman alias Hussain, 26, of Delhi have been charged by the NIA.

Earlier this year, following the March 1 blast at The Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru, the NIA had taken Minaj, Shaikh, Hussain, and Sameer into custody for investigations. However, they were not arrested.

The cafe blast suspect whose trail was pieced together through CCTV footage was found to have travelled to Ballari before disappearing. The suspect, Mussavi Hussain Shazib, 30, and his associate Abdul Matheen Taha, 30, were later tracked down to Chennai and further to Kolkata on April 12 and were arrested by the NIA.