NIA chargesheets one more accused in Shivamogga terror graffiti case

Arafath, who had radicalised and hired the other accused for writing the graffiti in January 2020, was arrested by the NIA at T3 International Airport, New Delhi.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has chargesheeted one more accused in the Shivamogga IS conspiracy case related to the graffiti written in Mangaluru supporting banned terrorist outfits – the Islamic State (IS), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and the Taliban. The NIA has also invoked additional charges against two others in the case.

In its second supplementary chargesheet filed in the case registered by the agency’s Delhi unit in 2022, accused Arafath Ali has been arraigned. Additional charges have been pressed against accused Mohammed Shariq and Maaz Muneer Ahmed.

“Arafath, who had radicalised and hired the other accused for writing the graffiti in January 2020, was arrested by the NIA at T3 International Airport, New Delhi, on return from Kenya on September 14, 2023,” said the agency on Friday. It is alleged that, anticipating that he would be arrested in the ‘Al-Hind module case’ for his association with absconding accused persons, Abdul Matheen Taha and Mussavir Hussain Shazeb, he had earlier fled to Dubai.

The NIA said: “It was on the instructions of Abdul Matheen and Mussavir Hussain that Arafath had indoctrinated Mohamed Shariq, Maaz Muneer Ahmed, and others to write graffiti in support of terror outfits at two places in Mangaluru... Arafath, along with his associates and the online handler, was part of a larger conspiracy to further the terror activities of IS/ISIS.”

Arafath Ali had paid the graffiti writers using the funds received in the form of cryptocurrencies from his online handler, said the agency. It had earlier filed one main and one supplementary chargesheet against nine persons, including Mohammed Shariq and Maaz Muneer Ahmed.