Four suspects held in Karnataka for IS links

Bengaluru, Jan 22  Four persons, including two youth, were arrested in Karnataka for their alleged links with the dreaded IS terror outfit, a top police official said on Friday.

"We learnt that four suspects were arrested in the state by central security agencies, but have not yet been officially informed," state Director General of Police (DGP) Om Prakash told IANS here.

Of the four suspects, two were taken into custody on Thursday night after their rented house was raided in Bengaluru and one each from Mangaluru on the west coast, 350 km away, and at Tumakuru, 70 km from here, on early Friday.

"You have to verify the arrests with the union home ministry in Delhi as central agencies have judicial powers to arrest any suspect in the country for internal security purpose and to prevent untoward incidents," Prakash said.

Based on intelligence inputs from the sleuths, teams of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided hideouts of Najmal Houda, 25, at Bajpe in Mangalore and Syed Husain, 25, at Tumakuru.

Houda is learnt to be a student in a engineering college in Bengaluru.

Names of two suspects nabbed from a Bengaluru residential suburb have not been revealed, but official said huge quantities of ammunition and explosives were seized from their rented house.

"Raids were conducted on a tip-off that the IS suspects or sympathisers have been planning bomb attacks on Republic Day (January 26) in the city or any other place in the state to cause scare or seek publicity," an official with the state anti-terrorist squad said on anonymity.

On alert and inputs from the home ministry, the state police have taken steps to beef up security across the southern state, especially in and around Bengaluru, with additional deployment at sensitive and vital installations.