Chennai: A National Investigation Agency (NIA) team probing the recent car bomb blast near a temple in Coimbatore has seized over 100 video clips, which included scenes of suicide bombings.
The seizures were made from the house of the friend of Jamesha Mubin, the terror operative who was killed in the blast.
Mubin's friend has been identified as Sheikh Hidayattullah.
The video clips were found in a pen-drive seized from Hidayattullah’s house. Of the 100 clips, 40 were discourses delivered by Zahran Hashmi, the brain behind the fatal Easter Day bombings of 2019 in Sri Lanka and 15 were speeches by controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik.
Incidentally, both Hidayattullah and Mubin were earlier listed as accused in the Islamic State (IS) case registered in the city in 2019.
NIA officials said that they had let off Hidayattullah after interrogation as he had claimed that the video clips were from the years before 2019. He was arrested in 2019 for making an attempt to set up an IS wing in Coimbatore. He later secured bail.
Hidayattullah also launched a Facebook page titled Khalifa GFX along with Muhammed Azharuddin, the leader of the local IS group.
After securing bail, Hidayuttulla has been working in the fabrication sector and told NIA that he was no longer interested in extremist ideology. However, he was still under observation, said NIA officials.
