The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad had arrested the four men last month.
Colombo:
Foreign Minister Ali Sabry said on Friday there is no evidence to support the claim that the four Sri Lankans arrested in India last month have links to ISIS.
The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad had claimed to have arrested four Sri Lankans with links to ISIS at Ahmedabad airport. The four men had boarded an Indigo flight from Colombo to Chennai on May 19, they said.
On May 31, Sri Lanka Police CID had arrested one Pushparaja Osman, 46, in Colombo, whom they had named as the suspected handler of the four arrested in India.
However, on Friday, Minister Sabry denied that the Sri Lankan nationals arrested in India had any link with the terrorist organization.
“There is no evidence to support the claim that the four Sri Lankans arrested in India have links to ISIS. The four Sri Lankans are believed to be linked to drug smuggling and not terrorism,” Mr Sabry told a press conference here.
After Osman’s arrest, police spokesperson Nihal Thalduwa, commenting on the investigation so far, had said that police could not verify that the four were linked to ISIS.
“It is yet to be established that they were propagating ISIS ideology in Sri Lanka,” he had said.
Last month, Sri Lankan authorities launched a robust operation to investigate the four Sri Lankans arrested in Gujarat.
Authorities say they will not take any chances with possible ISIS activities on the island after the Easter Sunday 2019 attack that killed more than 270 people, including 11 Indians.
Among those arrested in Gujarat is Mohammed Nusrat, a businessman involved in importing telecommunication equipment and electrical equipment from countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Dubai.
Mohammad Nafran has been identified as the son of the first wife of Niyas Naufer, also known as ‘Potta Naufer’, the infamous underworld criminal who was sentenced to death for the murder of Supreme Court Judge Sarath Ambepitiya.
Of the other two arrested Sri Lankans, Mohammad Faris had worked as a ‘Nattami’ or cart puller in Pettah and was arrested by the Colombo Crimes Division on March 11, 2023 and November 1 the same year.
On May 21, his close associate Hameed Amir was arrested by the Terrorist Investigations Division. Mohammad Faris left for Chennai on May 19.
The other suspect is Mohammad Rashdeen, a three-wheeler driver. Security forces suspect he is linked to crystal meth trafficking, or ICE.
On September 16, 2022, Rashdeen was arrested by Foreshore Police and later released on bail.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
