ISIS suspect recruiter arrested in Chennai by ATS

Chennai: In a significant development, the Rajasthan Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) today arrested a person having links with ISIS in Chennai City. Police sources said the suspect Haroon Rasheed, who runs a CD shop at Burma Bazaar in the Parry's Corner area, was arrested from his residence in the city.

Rasheed was later taken to Jaipur by a flight for further interrogation. Haroon Rasheed was raising funds for the terror outfit, besides recruiting people for it. The team during its investigation with Mohammad Iqbal, a resident of Mylapore arrested in February this year for raising funds for ISIS, found that he used several links inside the city to send funds to ISIS, and Haroon was one among them.

He revealed about Karimullah and Riya of Mannadi and Tausif of Triplicane, through whom he transferred money to one Ahmed, who in turn sends the funds to ISIS headquarters in Syria. It was also found that Iqbal had sent Rs 50,000 in Chinese currency earlier. He had also planned to visit Iran last year to pay a huge sum through an agent, from his bank account. Based on the information given by Iqbal, police rounded up Rasheed after monitoring his activities for one week. His bank account, phone call records and friends were also kept under watch.

Police said that Rasheed used various links to transfer money to the outfit. But his activities were exposed after the police found him transferring Rs five lakh for purchasing mobile phones recently. 'The terrorists do not directly transfer the money to Iraq or Syria. Instead the money is diverted to countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Korea before reaching the outfit's headquarters,' sources said. (UNI)