Chennai, Mar 28:
National Investigation Agency (NIA) sleuths carried out searches at three places in the city and Ramanathapuram as part of nationwide searchesin connectuion with the March 1 blast at Bengaluru’s Rameshwaram Cafe.
Sources said the houses of people suspected to have direct and indirect links with the bombers were searched.
In Chennai, an NIA team searched places in Old Washermenpet, Mannady and Royapettah. More than 20 places in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and a few other states were part of the search operations.
In Tamil Nadu, the Chennai unit of NIA carried out searches after investigators found that the main suspects, Mussavir Hussain Shazib and Abdul Mateen Ahmed, stayed in Chennai in January this year.
They had collected CCTV footage that shows the two men at a mall in Mylapore, Chennai, from where they bought a cap that Shazib was seen wearing in one of the footage from Bengaluru.
On March 1, an IED exploded at Rameshwaram Cafe in Brookfield area in Bengaluru, injuring 10 people. NIA took over the case and the suspects are believed to have links with a Shivmogga module of IS.
