Hyderabad: With the help of Telangana Counter Intelligence (CI) Cell sleuths, five dreaded Al-Qaeda leaders were arrested by the NIA on Monday from Madurai.

On a tip- off from Hyderabad's NIA unit, the officials swooped the surroundings in Madurai. The accused are - Dawood Suleiman (23), a TCS employee, Abbas Ali (27), a bomb maker, and Samsum Karim Raja, a BCom graduate, Mohammed Ayub Ali, Shamsudeen.

The officials said that the accused had plans to execute top 22 leaders of the country including prime minister Narendra Modi.

Suleiman was the leader of the terrorist group which was influenced by the ideology of Osama bin Laden. The group had claimed responsibility for these blasts and circulated pamphlets, pen drives and CDs in the name of ‘The Base Movement’

They were running the Al-Qaeda dubbed as 'The Base Movement' in Tamil Nadu. They were involved in the explosions that took place in various courts in the country over a period of time.

Suleiman was the leader of the terrorist group which was influenced by the ideology of Osama bin Laden. The group had claimed responsibility for these blasts and circulated pamphlets, pen drives and CDs in the name of ‘The Base Movement’.

The accused would be produced in local courts in Chennai, Madurai and later would be taken on a transit warrant to Bengaluru to be produced before the NIA special court there.