By Express News Service BENGALURU: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has taken over the investigation of the fake SIM card network, which allegedly has links with the assassins of Marthandam (Tamil Nadu) Sub-Inspector Wilson. The central agency is also likely to investigate the Wilson murder case. On January 8, the police officer was allegedly shot dead at a checkpost on Market Road near Kanyakumari by two ultras—Abdul Shameem and Toufeeq Yusuff—who were arrested at the Udupi Railway station on January 14 by the Internal Security Division (ISD) sleuths of Karnataka police and TN police. The Q branch of TN police along with Bengaluru City police and the ISD had earlier this month arrested five suspected ultras of a fringe group ‘Al Hind Trust’ from Bengaluru and Udupi. Shameem and Toufiq are allegedly members of the same “self styled and online radicalised module, which had started as a WhatsApp group in Tamil Nadu,” said an official source. Three others ultras were arrested by the special branch of Delhi police around the same time. According to sources, all the arrested are alleged members of the ‘fake SIM card network’, through which they were in touch with their counterparts in other states. In 2019, the NIA had arrested 14 people in TN in connection with the alleged Ansarulla terror outfit and had seized nine mobile phones, 15 SIM cards, seven memory cards, three laptops, five hard discs, six pen drives, two tablets and three CDs/ DVDs besides other alleged incriminating material from their possession.

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