A group of 30 individuals, including the brother-in-law of Zahran Hashim, have been released on bail.
Accordingly, they were released on surety bails of Rs. 100,000 each, on orders of the Batticaloa Magistrate’s Court, and were ordered to be presented before the court on 06 March.
The group, aged between 24 and 48, was arrested on 01 March, during a raid carried out in the Kattankudy area, based on a tip-off received by the police concerning an unlawful assembly.
They were subsequently interrogated by the Batticaloa Terrorism Investigation Division following which it was identified that the arrestees also included Niyaz, the brother-in-law of Zahran Hashim, the ringleader of the breakaway members of the hardline Islamist group National Thowheed Jama’ath (NTJ), accused of carrying out coordinated suicide bombings on April 21, 2019 which killed more than 350 people.
Police further identified that Niyaz’s older brothers, too, were amongst the arrestees.
