New Delhi [India], May 17 (ANI): The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested two absconding members of a sleeper module of the banned ISIS terror organisation in a 2023 case related to fabrication and testing of IEDs in Maharashtra's Pune, the agency said on Saturday.

The two men, identified as Abdullah Faiyaz Shaikh alias Diaperwala and Talha Khan, were intercepted by the Bureau of Immigration at the Mumbai International Airport T2 when they tried to return to India from Jakarta, Indonesia, where they had been hiding out.

The NIA team then took them into custody and arrested them.

The two accused had been on the run for the past over two years and also had non-bailable warrants issued against them by the NIA Special Court, Mumbai.

The NIA had also declared a cash reward of Rs 3 lakh each for information on the two accused.

The case (RC-05/2023/NIA/MUM) relates to a criminal conspiracy by these men, along with eight other ISIS Pune sleeper module members already arrested and in judicial custody.

'They had conspired to commit terrorist acts with the aim to disturb India's peace and communal harmony by waging a war against the Government of India in furtherance of the ISIS agenda to establish Islamic rule in the country through violence and terror,' said the NIA in a statement. These two men, already chargesheeted along with the other arrested accused, had been engaged in assembling IEDs from a house rented by Abdullah Faiyaz Shaikh in Kondhwa, Pune, said the NIA.

'During the 2022-2023 period, they had also organised and participated in a bomb making and training workshop, besides carrying out a controlled explosion to test an IED fabricated by them, at these premises.' NIA, which has been actively investigating the activities of ISIS in India in a bid to foil its violent and nefarious anti-India terrorist plans, had previously chargesheeted all the 10 accused in the case under various sections of UA (P) Act, Explosive Substances Act, Arms Act and IPC.

Besides Abdullah Faiyaz Shaikh and Talha Khan, the others arrested in the case are identified as Mohammed Imran Khan, Mohammed Yunus Saki, Abdul Kadir Pathan, Simab Nasiruddin Kazi, Zulfikar Ali Barodawala, Shamil Nachan, Akif Nachan and Shahnawaz Alam. (ANI)