Margao (Goa), Oct 17 (IANS): Amending foreign exchange norms will save Goa from the Islamic State (IS) terror group and protect the state's economic interests, said AICC secretary Shantaram Naik.

The All India Congress Committee secretary also claimed that Goa was under terror threat.

"The state government should take a delegation on Special Provisions (Special Status) issue to the prime minister to protect our land for not only economic reasons but also for security reasons in view of threat from Islamic State," Naik said at a press conference in Margao, 35 km from the state capital Panaji.

The Enforcement Directorate is already probing nearly 400 transactions in Goa, where land was purchased by foreign nationals using lacunae in the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

Sale of land to foreign nationals and non-Goans is also a sensitive subject with activists wholeheartedly and political parties to some degree claiming the tiny state's land resource was shrinking and its identity diluting due to large-scale in-migration.

Naik claimed that terror groups like IS could fraudulently buy land, start business and work as sleeper cells before unleashing their terror plans eventually.

"It is a genuine fear. We do not know the identity of buyers in so many cases. Such land deals could easily be engineering by desperate terror groups," Naik said, demanding tightening of FEMA laws by the central government.

"It is absolutely essential that purchase of properties by foreign nationals which is, unfortunately, permissible under certain conditions, have to be administratively and legally, restricted in public interest," he said.

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has denied that the state was on the IS terror radar.