New Delhi, Dec 9 (IANS): In a massive crackdown on IS, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday arrested 15 operatives of the banned terror outfit during multiple and widespread raids across Maharashtra and Karnataka at over 44 locations, officials said.

An NIA spokesperson here said that the multiple agency teams on Saturday swooped down on as many as 44 locations in Padgha-Borivali, Thane, Mira Road and Pune in Maharashtra, and Bengaluru in Karnataka early this morning, and apprehended the 15 accused for promoting terror and terror related acts and activities of the proscribed organisation.

The official said that huge amounts of unaccounted cash, firearms, sharp edged weapons, incriminating documents, smart phones and other digital devices were seized during the raids, conducted as part of NIA’s ongoing efforts to disrupt and demolish the attempts of Islamic State (IS) to carry out violent acts of terror and take innocent lives.

The official said that the accused, operating on the directions of their foreign handlers, had been actively involved in various terrorist activities, including fabrication of IEDs, for furthering the violent and destructive agenda of the IS, as per NIA investigations.

The NIA investigations have further revealed that the accused, all members of IS Maharashtra module, were operating from Padgha-Borivali, where they had hatched the conspiracy to spread terror and carry out acts of violence across the country.

The official said that pursuing the path of violent Jihad, Khilafat, IS etc., the accused had aimed to disturb the peace and communal harmony of the country and to wage a war against the India, the official said.

The official also said that its initial investigations have revealed that the arrested accused had self-declared the village of Padgha in rural Thane as a ‘liberated zone’ and as ‘Al Sham’.

"They were motivating impressionable Muslim youth to relocate in Padgha from their place of residence for strengthening the Padgha base," the official said.

The official also said that Saqib Nachan, the main accused and the leader and head of the IS module, was also administering the ‘bayath’ (oath of allegiance to the Khalifa of IS) to the persons joining the proscribed organisation.

The official also said that IS is a global terror organisation (GTG), also known as Islamic State (IS) or Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) or Daish or Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) or ISIS Wilayat Khorasan/Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham Khorasan (ISIS-K)).

The outfit has been spreading its terror network in India by putting in place localised IS modules and cells in various states of the country, the official said.

The NIA has, in recent months, conducted large-scale raids and busted different IS modules by arresting several terror operatives in the IS terror conspiracy case in a bid to scuttle the organisation’s heinous and violent anti-India agenda.

The agency as part of its efforts towards that end, the agency had registered a case against the IS Maharashtra module earlier this year and has, since then, undertaken strong and concerted actions to destroy the various IS modules and networks operating across the country.